Dr Joseph Turner

Research Interests
Immunology and pathology of helminth Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs)
My lab researches the spectrum of immunological responses that dictate major outcomes of human parasitism by tissue-dwelling helminth NTDs: limited, short term parasitism, chronic parasitism without overt disease and parasitism invoking severe inflammatory morbidity.

Understanding the cellular and molecular interface between the human immune system and helminth parasites is key to the rational design of novel drugs, immunotherapies and vaccines enabling more effective and safer treatments for both infection and inflammation-related morbidity.

My group are applying research models of helminth NTDs considered priority global health problems (namely, filariasis and schistosomiasis), as well as in depth immune-epidemiological surveys of parasitized human populations, to determine cellular and molecular mechanisms of host immunity, wound healing or immunopathology at tissue sites of parasitological assault.