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1994 …2024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Biography

Associate Professor Meredith O'Keeffe is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Laboratory of Dendritic Cell Driven Immunity in Health and Disease. Meredith received her PhD from Monash University in 1998. She has spent the following 16 years investigating dendritic cell biology, with positions at WEHI, Melbourne, Bavarian-Nordic GmbH, Munich, Germany and the Burnet Institute, Melbourne. Meredith's current research interests include investigating the function of dendritic cells in Lupus disease and malaria infection and examining the development and function of dendritic cells in Myelodysplasia.

Dendritic cells are sentinels of the immune system that produce cytokines and interferons upon sensing danger. They are also professional antigen presenting cells, thereby connecting the innate and adaptive immune systems. Our laboratory investigates how pathogens and their products and/or or self-nucleic acids activate dendritic cells. We aim to decipher how this activation influences the function of dendritic cells. We investigate how this process may differ in different body locations, at different ages and in different disease settings. Major aims are to understand the role of dendritic cells in bone marrow malignancies and in autoimmune diseases such as Lupus.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

Research area keywords

  • dendritic cells
  • immunity
  • cytokines
  • interferons
  • infection

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or