Interested in the biology of pregnancy and improving birth outcomes? Don't miss out on next year's UK Preterm Birth Conference in London, January 2027. Sessions on advanced technologies, in vitro modelling, systems biology, climate impacts and more... pretermconference.com/

@BourkeLab members sharing our research at the British Society of Immunology Annual Congress in Liverpool this week. Well done for all your hard work Leticia & Tracy @UofGMVLS

Experimenting with Bluesky as our new group platform for online connection & research updates - bourkelab.bsky.social - if you're already on there, follow us to stay connected!

Inspiring innate immunology & systems biology research at this years @KeystoneSymp. Grateful to get the chance to discuss our translational immunology work on anti-bacterial innate immune cell function from the HOPE-SAM study @ZvitamboZim tinyurl.com/3hy9kf56

Was so proud to see @HaiderTafhima presenting our new work investigating how undernutrition may shape innate immune cell function at last week's @britsocimm congress in Belfast. A great session coordinated by @meganmacleod15 @wo_jules

Importantly, innate anti-bacterial immune cell function during hospitalisation had consequences for nutritional rehabilitation. Bacterial binding & monocyte receptor responses were associated with higher odds of persistent wasting at hospital discharge.

This functional adaptation during hospitalisation was shaped by risk factors children had alongside SAM, particulalry the severity of their wasting (measured by mid-upper arm circumference), their age, duration of inpatient treatment, and whether they also had HIV infection.

...we also found that immune cells from children with SAM had a markedly enhanced ability to bind/phagocytose E. coli. Rather than being universally compromised, innate immune cells seem to functionally adapt to SAM, limiting new activation but maintaining bacterial cotainment.

Compared to healthy controls, immune cells from children with SAM seceted less IL-6, IL-8, TNF-alpha & myeloperoxidase (MPO) & their monocytes were less able to upregulate HLA-DR, CD86 & CD40 when stimulated with E. coli and Salmonella typhimurium antigens. But...

My commentary on a recent high profile publication was quoted in a national newspaper! Shout out to the @MediaWomanUK course I attended in March (pictured) for the confidence to comment...would recommend to colleagues interested in science communication! @acmedsci @SMC_London