Dr Henry McSorley

Biography
Henry studied for his undergraduate in Immunology at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 2004. He then completed a PhD on TGF-B homologues from parasites which induce Tregs with Professor Rick Maizels at the University of Edinburgh (graduating in 2008).

Henry then moved Brisbane and Cairns, Australia, to undertake a postdoctoral researcher post with Prof Alex Loukas. He worked on a clinical trial of human hookworm infection, to attempt to treat celiac disease. He returned to Rick Maizels lab in Edinburgh in 2010, working on using parasite secretory products to treat asthma. While there he received an Asthma UK Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship (2013) to continue this work. In 2014 he received a Chancellors Fellowship to set up his own laboratory in Edinburgh.

In 2020 Henry moved his lab to the University of Dundee. The lab’s interests focus on immunomodulation by parasites, and the role of the IL-33 pathway in infection and immunopathology. He is deputy head of the division of Cell Signalling and Immunology.

Research
Parasitic helminths have co-evolved with their mammalian hosts, resulting in their development of sophisticated methods of immune modulation to allow the parasites to survive despite efforts of the immune response to eject them. Our lab focuses on how parasitic helminths achieve this, identifying factors which modulate the host immune response and characterising their molecular mechanisms of action. By better understanding how helminths modulate the host immune response, we could learn from these sophisticated parasites, and use this knowledge to develop new treatments for immune-mediated diseases such as allergies and asthma. Conversely, by understanding how helminths interact with the immune system, we can understand how to better combat these important pathogens which afflict hundreds of millions of people worldwide.