Skip to main content

Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Trinity Menu Trinity Search

COVID-19 Immunology

Professor Andrew Bowie

Professor of Innate Immunology, Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute

  • Research Institute:

    • Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute

  • Contact e-mail:
  • Contact number:
  • Thematic Area:

    • Therapeutics/ Vaccine Studies

View TCD profile

Research Profile:

Prof. Bowie’s research has contributed to our understanding of molecular mechanisms of innate immunity, leading to insights into how the innate immune system detects pathogens and modulates inflammation. A major focus of his research is how innate immune cells detect viruses, and how viruses evade and manipulate host detection systems.

COVID-19 Project: Investigating innate immune detection of SARS-CoV-2 in order to inform the design of novel therapeutics

This project will establish and utilise cell culture infection models for SARS-CoV-2 in order to test the effects of novel and repurposed therapeutics on SARS-CoV-2 replication, and on virus-elicited cytokine and interferon responses. Further, there is an urgent need to more fully understand the innate immune response of epithelial and myeloid cells to the virus, for example in order to understand how a cytokine storm develops. Therefore, we will specifically explore how such cells detect SARS-CoV-2 and what type of cell death, cytokine and interferon responses ensue upon viral infection. We will determine which innate immune pattern recognition receptors and inflammasomes, and which signalling pathways, are used by host cells to detect SARS-CoV-2, and compare these to other respiratory RNA viruses in order to more fully understand SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis.