Contact information
Research groups
Websites
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Bezbradica Mirkovic Group | Macrophage biology in inflammation
Research Group, Kennedy Institute
Jelena Bezbradica Mirkovic
PhD
KTRR Senior Research Fellow
I am a Senior Research Fellow of the Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research (KTRR) and an MRC New Investigator at the University of Oxford.
My research goal is to elucidate mechanisms that control the initiation of inflammatory responses. Innate immune cells, such as macrophages and dendritic cells are sentinels of tissue homeostasis. Our group investigates how these cells integrate signals from cytokines (which report on infection or tissue injury) with signals from microbial and tissue-damage sensors to direct the most appropriate effector response.
The NLRP3 inflammasome is one such critical sensor of cell and tissue homeostasis that becomes activated in response to pathogen- or tissue-derived danger signals. While beneficial during infections, excessive and uncontrolled NLRP3 activity contributes to the development of several inherited and acquired inflammatory diseases. Hence, we study how the NLRP3 pathway activity is ‘turned on and off’ in healthy individuals to be able to harness this knowledge for therapeutic interventions.
I earned my Ph.D. degree with Professor Sebastian Joyce at Vanderbilt University, USA. I continued my research training as a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral fellow with Professor Ruslan Medzhitov at Yale University, USA, and with Professor Kate Schroder at The University of Queensland, Australia. I joined the Kennedy Institute in 2016.
Key publications
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Journal article
Boucher D. et al, (2018), The Journal of experimental medicine, 215, 827 - 840
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Journal article
Bezbradica JS. et al, (2017), Cell Mol Immunol, 14, 118 - 126
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Journal article
Bezbradica JS. et al, (2014), Nat Immunol, 15, 333 - 342
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Journal article
Bezbradica JS. and Medzhitov R., (2009), Nat Immunol, 10, 333 - 339
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Journal article
Bezbradica JS. et al, (2006), Immunity, 25, 487 - 497
Recent publications
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Journal article
Monteleone M. et al, (2018), Cell Rep, 24, 1425 - 1433
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Sterile signals generate weaker and delayed macrophage NLRP3 inflammasome responses relative to microbial signals
Conference paper
Coll RC. et al, (2018), EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF IMMUNOLOGY, 46, 850 - 850
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STAYING ALIVE! SIGNAL PROCESSING BY NF-kappa B PROTECTS NKT CELLS FROM TNFR1-TRIGGERED DEATH
Conference paper
Kumar A. et al, (2018), JOURNAL OF IMMUNOLOGY, 200
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Journal article
Chen KW. et al, (2018), Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950), 200, 3341 - 3346
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Journal article
Boucher D. et al, (2018), The Journal of experimental medicine, 215, 827 - 840