Research Fellow and Program Head, Immunity and Inflammation
BSc (Hons.) PhD
Phil is a Research Fellow in the Experimental Immunology Research Team and Program Head of the Immunity and Inflammation program and the Telethon Kids Institute. He is also an Associate Professor in Pathology at Murdoch University, where he holds a tenured academic teaching position. He completed his PhD in immunology in 1994 at Murdoch University and has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Oxford, University of Western Australia and Telethon Kids Institute.
His research is focused on understanding the regulation of immune defence mechanisms in the lungs, including the role of respiratory dendritic cells in regulating immunological tolerance, the pathogenesis of allergic inflammatory disorders such as allergic asthma, and in protection against, and recovery from, respiratory viral infections including influenza A virus. As part of the Early Environment Research Focus Area at Telethon Kids Institute, and in collaboration with A/Prof Deb Strickland, he also has interests in developing new approaches strategies for enhancing and restoring immune tolerance in early life as an approach to boosting respiratory defence mechanisms to provide enhanced anti-viral defence and prevent damaging inflammatory responses.
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Publications
July 2021
Protection against neonatal respiratory viral infection via maternal treatment during pregnancy with the benign immune training agent OM-85
Incomplete maturation of immune regulatory functions at birth is antecedent to the heightened risk for severe respiratory infections during infancy. Our forerunner animal model studies demonstrated that maternal treatment with the microbial-derived immune training agent OM-85 during pregnancy promotes accelerated postnatal maturation of mechanisms that regulate inflammatory processes in the offspring airways.
Published research Pregnancy and Early Life Immunology Human ImmunologyJuly 2021Protection against neonatal respiratory viral infection via maternal treatment during pregnancy with the benign immune training agent OM-85
Incomplete maturation of immune regulatory functions at birth is antecedent to the heightened risk for severe respiratory infections during infancy. Our forerunner animal model studies demonstrated that maternal treatment with the microbial-derived immune training agent OM-85 during pregnancy promotes accelerated postnatal maturation of mechanisms that regulate inflammatory processes in the offspring airways.
Published research Early Childhood Development Pregnancy and Early Life Immunology Human Immunology Systems ImmunologyDecember 2020Transplacental Innate Immune Training via Maternal Microbial Exposure: Role of XBP1-ERN1 Axis in Dendritic Cell Precursor Programming
We recently reported that offspring of mice treated during pregnancy with the microbial-derived immunomodulator OM-85 manifest striking resistance to allergic airways inflammation, and localized the potential treatment target to fetal conventional dendritic cell (cDC) progenitors. Here, we profile maternal OM-85 treatment-associated transcriptomic signatures in fetal bone marrow, and identify a series of immunometabolic pathways which provide essential metabolites for accelerated myelopoiesis.
Published research Pregnancy and Early Life Immunology Human Immunology Systems Immunology -
Education and Qualifications
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Awards/Honours
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Active Collaborations