Gabriele Pollara

My work focuses on delineating the processes underlying pathological immune responses in TB disease and leprosy, and in their associated paradoxical reactions. My group uses systems-level bioinformatic deconvolution of bulk- and single cell-transcriptional responses from the sites of challenge models and disease, alongside spatial transcriptomic assessments, population-level genetic epidemiology and tractable in vitro models. My overarching ambitions are to use these approaches to define rational therapeutic targets to attenuate tissue pathology, and to explore the use of adjunctive immunomodulatory host-directed therapies in experimental medicine studies that ultimately facilitate the transition to early phase clinical studies.