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Wednesday September 04, 2024

Congratulations to Phoebe Dewar
2022 ASI Career Advancement Awardee

We warmly congratulate
Phoebe Dewar
winner of the 2022 Career Advancement Award 

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My name is Phoebe, and I am a final year PhD Student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne.

In 2018 I completed my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences, majoring in Infection and Immunity at the University of Otago. Following this, I completed an honours research project and two summer internships at the University of Otago with Professor James Ussher, investigating the activation of mucosal associated invariant T (MAIT) cells. This interest in MAIT cells led me to Melbourne to pursue a PhD under the supervision of Dr Sidonia Eckle in Professor Jim McCluskey’s lab, beginning in 2020.

My PhD project focused on characterizing the response of mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells during Plasmodium parasite infection, the causative agent of malaria. Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells are a subset of pro-inflammatory innate-like T cells that are highly abundant in human tissues and recognize small molecule metabolite antigens presented by the MHC class-I-like molecule, MR1.  A key aim was to determine if human MAIT cells respond to Plasmodium sporozoites, the parasite stage relevant to the initial infection. To address this, I successfully developed an in vitro assay that measures the response of human blood-derived MAIT cells to Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites and found that MAIT cell activation was dependent on MR1 antigen presentation. Riboflavin biosynthesis is the only known microbial source of MAIT cell antigen, but Plasmodium lacks the riboflavin biosynthesis pathway. Hence my data suggests a novel Plasmodium-derived MAIT cell antigen exists. Future work will focus on the identification of this antigen, characterizing the MAIT cell response to Plasmodium in greater depth, and understanding how this novel antigen could be utilized for a protective immune response.

In January 2024, I had the opportunity to attend and present a poster at the FIMSA Advanced Training Course and JSI conference in Chiba, Japan. The generous financial support from ASI via the Career Advancement Award, as well as FIMSA, was key to allowing me to attend this training course and conference. This was an invaluable experience that allowed me to hear and learn from many researchers at the forefront of their respective fields and specifically from some of the world leaders in innate-like T cell research. Also, the opportunity to receive feedback on my work and suggestions on the next steps for the project will be incredibly beneficial during the process of writing my PhD thesis and for my continued work on this project.

Thanks to ASI for the support to attend the FIMSA Advanced Training course and JSI.

Author: Phoebe Dewar

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ASI