Abstract

This Cambridge Immunology Network Seminar will take place on Thursday 11th June 2026, starting at 4:00pm, in the Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC)

Speaker: Prof Greg Towers, Professor of Molecular Virology, Centre for Immunobiology and Infection, Queen Mary University of London Title: Studying viruses to understand what makes pandemic viruses special and how innate immunity works

Abstract: Innate immune sensing allows us to detect infection and ideally respond in a way that leads to resolution without disease. However, unfortunately for us, viruses evolve to evade or counter these defences, and in that case, the inflammatory response to the ongoing infection drives viral disease. In fact, can all human disease be associated with mis-regulated immune responses with or without infection? Would disease exist if we hadn’t evolved immunity to protect us from infection? In order to consider how innate immunity works, and how viruses engage with it, we infect cells and study host responses. We also compare host responses between, for example, pandemic viruses and their non-pandemic relatives, with a view to understanding what makes pandemic viruses special. We have found that pandemic HIV does the best job of avoiding interferon induction by adapting its capsid to evade DNA sensing by cGAS and capsid sensing by TRIM5 . We found that SARS -CoV-2 variants of concern adapted to human infection by increasing expression of existing innate immune antagonists, enhancing transmission simply by over-expression. We have also studied how endogenous virus-related transposable elements contribute to sterile inflammation concluding that maybe we need to rethink how sensing works and reconsider the nature of the stimulus for nucleic acid sensors and ask whether it is viral or host nucleic acids being sensed. I will also describe how studying how bugs target immune defences can reveal a new way to drug viral infection.

Host: Professor Clare Bryant, Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge Refreshments will be available following the seminar.