Dr Bruce Maclachlan

Health and Care Research Wales Faculty award:

Award: National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Fellowship Programme (2022 - 2025)

Project title: Deciphering the molecular rules that govern CD4+ T cell responses to tumour associated antigen peptides to enhance anti-tumour immunity

Biography

Bruce’s research focuses on how the immune system recognises cancer with the aim of harnessing this knowledge to design improved cancer vaccines. He was awarded a PhD in Cancer Biology from Cardiff University in 2017 where he studied CD4+ ‘helper’ T cells in colorectal cancer supervised by Dr David Cole and Prof Andrew Godkin. In 2018, he spent time as a post-doctoral researcher in Monash University (Australia) in the lab of Prof Jamie Rossjohn, researching NK cell receptors. He has utilised structural and molecular biology techniques to understand important immune recognition events between immune cells and target antigens – which flag the presence of cancer or viral infection to the immune system.

Bruce’s current research aims to describe the nature of tumour antigens which are presented to CD4+ T cells for recognition and to use structure guided approaches to make T cells recognise these tumour antigens more effectively. 

Read more about Bruce and their work:

£6.4 million to support vital health and social care research in Wales