Sex is a fundamental but frequently overlooked biological characteristic of humans and model organisms that affects immune responses. We are developing integrative bioinformatics approaches to interrogate publicly available transcriptomics and epigenomics datasets to delineate the sex- determined molecular mechanisms that modulate the immune system.

We aim to generate models of the sex- and cell-specific gene regulatory networks for the major blood cell types where data is available. We will study how these sex-specific networks derived from healthy cells are influenced by infections and other disease conditions. We will develop new bioinformatics tools to integrate the sex-specific transcriptional programs with diverse sources of epigenomics information to identify the distinct chromatin configurations that underlie the different immune responses in men and women.

These results will provide the necessary framework to understand the molecular differences in men and women in response to infections, autoimmune disease and in immunodeficiencies. This will provide new insights underlying disease pathogenesis and facilitate personalised therapy for men and women.

A postdoc position funded by the Wellcome Trust is available if you will like to participate in this project! The successful candidate will the study sex-specific regulation in immune cells (data integration from publicly available transcriptomics and epigenomics databases).

Informal queries before applying are highly encouraged! Please email me if you are interested: . Click here to apply.

I am really happy to announce that I have been awarded with a Wellcome Trust Seed Award in Science – I am really honoured to be the first Early Career PI at the Newcastle Faculty of Medical Sciences to get this prestigious award!

We will study Sex-dependent gene regulation in immune cells, mining publicly available transcriptomics and epigenomics datasets. The goal is to understand how the “same” immune cell type can show different gene expression patterns in men and women, and how these differences can explain their different immune responses. We are based at the Immunology, Inflammation and Immunotherapy research theme of the Institute of Cellular Medicine and will collaborate with my experimental colleagues to experimentally explore the relevance of our findings in different disease contexts.

A post-doc position funded by the associated funding is available, please contact me if you are interested! 😉