Carolien van de Sandt

Applications are now open for the 7th ISRV School of Respiratory Viruses at The University of Hong Kong. An intensive program for #EarlyCareerResearchers and postgraduate students focused on influenza, coronavirus, RSV and more.

Apply now: buff.ly/MQ8VqlN

📣 ESWI has created an Influenza Starter Pack on Bluesky
It brings together trusted public health organisations, epidemiologists, and influenza-focused experts

Follow all in one click or share with your network 🤝

👉 go.bsky.app/HuMRYtw

Many congratulations to @pogorely.bsky.social & @pgtimmune.bsky.social and their team, very excited to see this work finally published! Such a fantastic new method for TCR analysis! Looking forward to using it myself :)

Dr Carolien van de Sandt 2026 CSL Centenary Fellowship Recipient Dr Carolien van de Sandt

Read more about the Fellowship: www.cslfellowships.com.au/fellows-archive/dr-carolien-van-de-sandt-biography

I'm deeply honoured & grateful to have been awarded the #CSLCentenaryFellowship at the #AAHMS dinner last week

Many thanks to my mentors & colleagues for their support

Congratulations to my Fellow winner @rhyswg.bsky.social

#MedicalResearch
#CSLCentenaryFellowships
#WomenInSTEMM
@mcri.bsky.social

Big congratulations well deserved winners who did amazing work!! 🥳🥳

Key takeaways from today’s #ESWI2025 plenary:
🇺🇸 Shifting US priorities reshape global research
🇪🇺🇨🇦 EU & Canada face widening funding gaps
👩‍🔬Early-career scientists struggle to find stable paths need support from established scientists
🔄 Collaboration & support are essential

What a great session and fantastic advice from the panel on how to navigate your career. With fantastic questions from our ECR/ECaS audience.

Choose/find a path that you are passionate about and a career is rarely a straight line

Great work by @chinweetan.bsky.social , @Len Dalit and @groomlab.bsky.social and her team understanding the signatures behind T folicular helper heterogeneity! ⬇️

#ImmunoSky

And thanks to our funders:
@nhmrc.bsky.social, The Australian Research Council, the NIH, the Clifford Craig Foundation, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, The University of Melbourne

Thanks everybody who contributed:
Hayley McQuilten, Jerome Samir, Oanh Nguyen, Ratana Lim, Jasveen Kaur, Simone Rizzetto, Auda Eltahla, Paul Thomas, Martha Lappas, Jamie Rossjohn, Stephanie Gras, Jane Crowe, Katie Flanagan, Fabio Luciani , Peter Doherty, @katherinekedz.bsky.social

Thanks for the memories: How killer T cells protect us from the flu throughout life With influenza season underway in Australia, researchers at the Doherty Institute are working to better understand how the immune system responds to these infections and how its protection changes as we age.

Tejas also wrote a great lay version which can be found at the @thedohertyinst.bsky.social website: www.doherty.edu.au/news-events/...

📢 Very proud to present @tejas-the-tcell.bsky.social 2nd First Author paper published in @pnas.org where he showed that key #TCR repertoires & gene expression profiles can be found in #influenza CD8 T central memory cell pools across the human lifespan. #AgingResearch
doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2501167122

Central memory T cells with key TCR repertoires and gene expression profiles dominate influenza CD8+ T cell pools across the human lifespan | PNAS Central memory CD8+ T cells (Tcm) represent the prominent memory T cell subset in human blood, yet the persistence of T cell receptor (TCR) clonoty...

Thanks for the memories! Proud to have our study on central memory CD8+ T cells across the human lifespan published in PNAS today!
You can read our paper: go.unimelb.edu.au/rp7p
Or our article: go.unimelb.edu.au/jp7p
@thedohertyinst.bsky.social‬ @cvandesandt.bsky.social‬ @katherinekedz.bsky.social‬

🚨 #ESWI2025 🚨 Key upcoming deadlines
🐦 Early bird registration ends on 30 June 2025
🚀 Extra call for abstracts in #Molecular #Virology open until 31 July 2025
🚀 Late breaker abstract submission is open until 10 August eswiconference.org/abstract-sub...

Linking Epitope‐Specific T‐Cell Receptors to IFNγ Secretion Using Nanovial Technology To link IFNγ-secretion levels of epitope-specific T-cells with their TCRαβ, we coated nanovials with pHLA-I to capture and activate epitope-specific T-cells and their secreted IFNγ, followed by index...

📢Very proud to present @jetvddijssel.bsky.social her final paper for her PhD in @eurjimmunol.bsky.social where we used the latest #Nanovial technology to activate CD8 T cells and link their TCRs to IFNy levels without the need to fix them! doi.org/10.1002/eji.... @thedohertyinst.bsky.social @Sanquin

🗓️ Only 3 weeks to go! 📍#ESWI2025
📆 20–23 October 2025 | Valencia, Spain
📝 Abstract submission deadline: 16 May 2025
🚨 Don’t miss your chance to contribute to the largest European #scientific conference on #Influenza & #AcuteRespiratoryVirus diseases
eswiconference.org/abstract-sub...

#Openaccess

This study was supported by
#nhmrc, #arc_gov_au, #MSCActions, #EU_H2020

This study was a multi-institute collaboration between @thedohertyinst.bsky.social, @UniMelb, @whofluccmelb.bsky.social , @latrobeuni.bsky.social , @monashuniversity.bsky.social

We would like to thank all our collaborators on this work @HayleyMcQuilten, @MaletAban, @OanhNguyen, @SophieValkenburg @EmmaGrant, @SnehaSant, @JamieRossjohn, @graslab.bsky.social , @JaneCrowe

Conclusion: Public A2/M158-specific TCR clonotypes are long-lived. We identified a window of opportunity between 30-40 years of age, when optimal public TCRs and/or public-associated clonotypes could be boosted through novel vaccinations, so they can be maintained to older age.

We demonstrated that the lower probability of generation of older TCRb chains underpins the decrease in TCR similarity within the A2M1-specific TCRab repertoire of older adults over time.

Decline in adults public TCRs is compensated by expansion of similar TCRs which express public CDR3 motifs with strong avidity for A2M1. Older TCR repertoires lack public-CDR3 motifs, resulting in expansion of low similar TCRs with private CDR3 motifs & lower avidity for A2M1.

Young public clonotypes (associated with higher functionality) and older private clonotypes (associated with lower functionality) are long-lived and can be detected over the course of 12 years but gradually decline over time.

Adult TCR repertoires were relative stable across timepoints, the limited diversity resulted from broader TCRa gene usage. Heterogenic changes were observed in older TCR repertoires across timepoints, both the TCRa & TCRb chain contribute to diversifying older TCR repertoires.

We defined influenza-specific CD8 T cell immunity over 12 years directly ex vivo in cohort of adults & older adults. T cells were directed at the prominent/conserved HLA-A*02:01-restricted M1(58–66) peptide derived from influenza A viruses (A2M1)

T Time’s Up, when the immune system is getting older, it gradually loses its top team players
A brief lay summary of our work can be found here: doherty.edu.au/news-events/news/t-times-up-when-the-immune-system-is-getting-older-it-gradually-loses-its-top-team-players
#SciComm

Your immune system gradually loses it top team players when we get older 👱➡️👵
Our study in @ebiomedicine.bsky.social investigates how long good immune cells stay around – a 🧵⬇️ go.unimelb.edu.au/4sep
@katherinekedz.bsky.social @thedohertyinst.bsky.social #Influenza #AgingResearch #Immunity #TCR

Congratulations!!