Professor Doreen Cantrell is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee. Her research interests are focused on T lymphocyte development and activation, a key process to the comprehension and manipulation of mammalian immune responses. She has published over 180 research papers and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and EMBO in 2000, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2005 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2011. She was awarded Commander of the British Empire in the 2014 New Year Honours for her services to the UK Science.

Abstract:
ENVIRONMENT CONTROL OF T CELL FUNCTION
Prof Doreen Cantrell, Professor of Cellular Immunology and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee

The T lymphocyte response to pathogens is shaped by the T cell microenvironment and key environmental signals are provided by amino acids, glucose and oxygen. Environmental sensors in T cells include the nutrient-sensing serine/threonine kinases, adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase and mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 and signaling pathways regulated by intracellular protein O-GlcNAcylation. Other environmental sensors are transcription factors such as c-myc, hypoxia-inducible factor-1 and the aryl hydrocarbon receptor. The present talk will explore the molecular basis for the impact of environmental signals on the differentiation of conventional T cell receptor αβ T cells and how the T cell response to immune stimuli can coordinate the T cell response to environmental cues.