Abstract
Duration: 60 minutes
This webinar will discuss a standardized whole-blood culture and stimulation system and its application to a range of multi-center immune response studies.
Our speaker, Darragh Duffy, Scientific Manager of the LabEx Milieu Interieur consortium at the Institut Pasteur, will share details of several projects using the TruCulture whole-blood syringe-based system, which permits point-of-care standardized immune stimulation.
Dr. Duffy’s team recently completed a multi-center clinical study in seven Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS) Centers of Excellence across Europe to directly compare TruCulture to conventional peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) methods. The study found that the ex vivo TruCulture procedure preserved physiological cellular interactions to more accurately reflect the complexities of the human immune system.
Dr. Duffy will also share how his team has applied TruCulture stimulation to the 1,000-donor cohort of the Milieu Interieur consortium, the objective of which is to define the boundaries of a healthy immune response at both the proteomic and transcriptomic level.
Dr. Duffy will also discuss a partnership with Rules-Based Medicine, a Q2 Solutions Company (formerly Myriad RBM) to co-develop the 13-analyte OptiMAP Luminex panel to enable the dissection of intrinsic (age, sex), genetic, and environmental factors to diverse immune stimuli at the population level.
Darragh Duffy, PhD
Scientific Manager
LabEx Milieu Interieur, Institut Pasteur, Paris
Throughout his research career Darragh Duffy has been interested in how a better understanding of fundamental immunology can be applied to novel solutions for improving human health. He undertook a PhD in immunological memory, and with progression of his career moved closer to translational research to deliver research findings to the clinic. During his post-doctoral positions he worked on vaccine development projects for HIV and TB to understand how different vaccination strategies impact innate and adaptive immunity. He has also focused on biomarkers that are predictive of spontaneous clearance and response to therapy for Hepatitis C patients. This approach is helping us to understand what is required for a protective immune response to HCV while at the same time giving us unique tools to help manage therapeutic decisions. Currently as the scientific manager of the LabEx Milieu Interieur project at Institut Pasteur, Paris he is leading efforts to understand the genetic and environmental determinants of a healthy immune response, while also applying these findings to disease settings for development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.
