Ussher Asst. Prof. Nollaig Bourke
Ussher Assistant Professor in InflammAgeing
- Research Institute:
Inflammageing Research Group, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute (TTMI)
- Contact e-mail:
- Research Area(s):
Inflammation, Ageing, Interferons, Innate Immunity, Biological Age.
Research Description:
The research of the Inflammageing Research Group focuses on unravelling the effects of ageing on our immune system, and in particular the innate immune system, which regulates inflammatory and type I interferon (IFN) responses. We place a strong emphasis on understanding these responses in the context of biological ageing and the impact of age-related immune dysregulation on health and disease in older adults. Altered inflammatory responses lie at the heart of the pathogenesis of most, if not all, age-related diseases and we believe that by understanding how these responses change during the ageing process, both at a cellular and systemic level, we can identify some of the earliest pathophysiological mechanisms altered in disease development. Some of the diseases we focus on include cognitive decline, viral infection and ageing-associated autoimmunity (ANCA-associated Vasculitis).
Our lab works closely with the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) to investigate how these responses change over time at a population level with the ultimate aim of gaining greater insight into what drives the heterogeneity in innate immune responses in the older adult population and what this means for subsequent health and disease during ageing. We also work closely with our clinical collaborators in St. James’s Hospital and Tallaght University Hospital on several translational immunology studies in this area. Ongoing projects in the lab include:
> Investigating SARS-CoV-2 immunity in older adult populations, including TILDA and Nursing Home Residents
> Exploring how the ageing innate immune system is related to inflammation in ANCA-associated Vasculitis
> Investigating how biological ageing influences type I IFN and inflammatory response regulation
> Determining the relationship between frailty and immunity during ageing
We welcome expressions of interest from researchers interested in developing proposals in this area for IRC, HRB and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowships.
