Dr Arwen Altenburg
- Wellcome Early-Career Award Fellow
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About
Arwen graduated in 2013 from Utrecht University, the Netherlands with an MSc degree in Infection & Immunity. As part of the MSc programme, she worked as a research intern in the labs of Prof Linde Meyaard (UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands) and Prof Hidde Ploegh (Whitehead Institute, Boston, USA).
In 2018, Arwen obtained her PhD degree from Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Under the supervision of Prof Guus Rimmelzwaan & Dr Rory de Vries, she investigated properties of the modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) vaccine platform and worked on MVA-based influenza vaccine candidates capable of inducing broadly protective immune responses.
Subsequently, Arwen joined the lab of Prof Geoffrey Smith (University of Cambridge) as a postdoc. She moved to the group of Prof Louise Boyle in October 2020 to work on the characterisation of TAPBPR function.
January 2023, Arwen received a Wellcome Early-Career Award and started her lab researching MHC-I antigen processing and presentation in viral immune detection and evasion.
Research
Research focus: MHC-I antigen processing and presentation in virus immune detection and evasion
Major Histocompatibility Complex class I (MHC-I) molecules are essential for orchestrating immune responses to tumours and pathogen-infected cells. They do this by presenting protein fragments (peptides) from pathogen and tumour proteins at the cell surface for surveillance by immune cells. When CD8+ T cells detect a foreign (viral) peptide presented by MHC-I, they will proceed to lysing the target cell.
Immunogenic peptides are generated and selected for presentation in the MHC-I antigen processing and presentation pathway. To evade immune detection, viruses have evolved strategies to manipulate MHC-I molecules directly or to interfere with other proteins in the antigen processing and pathway. We are interested in exploring the MHC-I antigen processing and presentation pathway in virus infections to i) gain a better understanding of immune detection of virus-infected cells and ii) to explore novel strategies by which viruses evade MHC-I pathway proteins. Ultimately, characterisation of these dynamics can inform development of novel vaccines and therapeutics.
Dominic Nolan (PhD student)
Jade Tescari (MPhil student)
Research Assistant