Abstract

This Cambridge Immunology Network Seminar will take place on Thursday 7th May 2026, starting at 4:00pm, in the Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC)

Speaker: Dr Charlotte Odendall, Senior Lecturer, Department of Infectious Diseases, King’s College London

Title: Interferon: Tug of War between Host and Pathogen

Abstract: Charlotte Odendall received her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from Imperial College London. She carried out her graduate work on Salmonella pathogenesis under the supervision of David Holden. She then joined the lab of Jonathan Kagan at Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital to study host innate immune processes, in particular the regulation of type I and III interferons. Charlotte then started her lab as a Research Fellow, funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society, at King’s College London, where she is now a Senior Lecturer. The Odendall lab investigates immune responses to enteric bacteria, as well as how bacterial pathogens manipulate host processes to colonise the host. Interferons are induced during enteric bacterial infection and shape host defence at mucosal surfaces. While best known for their antiviral roles, interferon responses also play important and context-dependent functions during intracellular bacterial infection. In this talk, I will discuss how interferon signalling influences infection and immunity in cellular and animal models. Our work identifies interferon-stimulated genes that restrict bacterial infection and examines how the bacterial pathogens Salmonella and Shigella target these host defence programmes. Together, these findings highlight the dynamic interplay between host and pathogen at epithelial barriers.

Host: Dr Virginia Pedicord, CITIID , Cambridge

Refreshments will be available following the seminar.