Kevin is a Professor of Immunology based within the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation and the Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre.

Malaria Pathogenesis

Malaria remains one of the most severe parasitic infections of humans in the world.  It is estimated that over 250 million people become infected with malaria annually, resulting in over 600,000 deaths, mainly of young children in Sub Saharan Africa, each year. Although the Plasmodium protozoan parasite was first shown to be the causative agent of malaria over 130 years ago, we still have a very poor understanding of why some individuals are susceptible to malaria infection and why others are resistant.  This is in large part due to our lack of knowledge of the pathogenesis of the most severe complications of malaria infection, such as cerebral malaria.  My group use murine models of malaria and human blood and tissue samples to investigate the parasitological and immunological processes that initiate and cause severe malarial disease. Our two main interests are:

1. Delineating the pathways that promote the development of cerebral malaria, and which influence the recovery from the syndrome.
2. Dissecting how Plasmodium-specific immune responses develop and self-regulate during malaria infection.

Understanding the immune response to brain tumours

Brain tumours, such as glioblastoma, are particularly difficult to treat and, so far, have proven refractive to immunotherapy approaches effective in various other types of cancer.  This is, in part, due to the position of brain tumours within the central nervous system, but also because of their unique biology.  My group work closely with pathologists and neurosurgeons within the Geoffrey Jefferson Brain Research Centre and employ cutting-edge high dimensional imaging approaches to study the cellular landscape within different types of brain tumour. In particular, we examine how the positioning and function of specific immune cell populations in the tumour microenvironment influences brain tumour spread, growth, and recurrence.  Our two main interest are:

1. Assessing how neoplastic cells and immune cells communicate within the tumour microenvironment of glioblastoma to control treatment outcome.
2. Identifying how the immune system can be therapeutically targeted to treat NF2-related schwannomatosis (NF2). NF2 is an inherited syndrome characterised by development of multiple tumours within the nervous system.