JavaScript is Disabled
Your browser's JavaScript functionality is disabled. It has to be enabled to use this function of ConfTool.
Here you can find information on how to enable JavaScript
If you have any problems, please contact the organizers at parasitologycommunicator@gmail.com.

Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

CP5.2: Immunology 1 - 5 min talks
Location: Lecture Theatre 2
Session Chair: Danielle Stanisic, Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics, Griffith University
Session Chair: Hannah Siddle, The University of Queensland

Presentation 1

Single-cell dissection of protective T cell immunity in a genetically attenuated Plasmodium sporozoite vaccine model

Grace Rochfort Peters¹, Feyza Colakoglu Veli¹, Harry Pollard¹, Chiyun Lee², Andrew Balmer^2,3, Venkata Krishna Kanth Makani⁴, Richard Pearson², Mike Johnson¹, Masahiro Ono⁵, Alok Joglekar⁴, Daniel Fernandez Ruiz¹, Jake Baum^1,5

1: School of Biomedical Sciences, University of New South Wales, Australia; 2: Department of Vector Biology, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, UK; 3: Genomic Surveillance Unit, Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK; 4: Department of Immunology, University of Pittsburgh, USA; 5: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, UK

Despite major progress over the past 25 years, malaria remains a significant global health burden, and protection from current vaccines is limited. Pre-erythrocytic vaccines targeting the liver stage of infection are therefore promising. Immunisation with genetically attenuated Plasmodium parasites, such as P. falciparum GA2, can induce strong, even sterile, protection in humans. Liver-resident memory CD8⁺ T cells play a key role in this protection, yet their antigenic targets remain poorly defined.

To address this, we isolated reactive T cells following immunisation with a protective dose of P. berghei GA2. Antigen-responsive clones were identified using the “Timer of Cell Kinetics and Activity” (Tocky) mouse model, which detects recently activated T cells via Nr4a3-driven fluorescent protein expression and enables analysis of signalling dynamics. These cells underwent single-cell RNA and TCR sequencing to define transcriptional profiles and clonal expansion as compared to mock-immunised controls.

A subset of expanded TCRs was expressed in murine CD8⁺ Jurkat cells and used to screen ~200,000 predicted epitopes via a chimeric SABR platform. This system presents pMHC complexes linked to signalling domains, enabling antigen discovery. This pipeline will identify targets for validation and inform next-generation malaria vaccine design.