Personal Info

E-mail: Kathleen.nolan(at)path.ox.ac.uk

Tel: 01865 (2)75518

Web Link: http://www.path.ox.ac.uk/dirsci/immunology/waldmann

Academic Background:

BA(Hons) Biochemistry, University of Oxford - Somerville College, 1984-88; DPhil Biochemistry, University of Oxford - Wolfson College 1988-92; HGMP Postdoctoral Research Scientist, MRC Immunochemistry Unit, University of Oxford, 1992; Harvard Research Fellow, Hematology Oncology Department, New England Deaconess Hospital, 1993-94; Senior Research Scientist, Therapeutic Immunology Group, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, 1995-present; Non-stipendiary Lecturer in Medical Sciences, St Anne’s College, Oxford, 2008-present.

Teaching Interests:

Undergraduate: Pathology and Microbiology (BM2); FHS Infection and Immunity
Graduate: Immunology (graduate medicine)

Research Interests:

The theme of my research career to date has been how molecules interact to control immunity. During my doctorate, I cloned the gene encoding human properdin; a molecule that promotes activation of complement – a system of sequential protein interactions that are important in the body’s first line of immunological defence. I briefly embraced the early genomic era with a short divergence into long-range mapping and gene discovery within the human major histocompatibility complex, before taking up a postdoctoral position in the States engineering T cell receptors in an attempt to redirect the destructive capacity of T cells for cancer immunotherapy. Since my return to the UK I have been working within the Therapeutic Immunology Group, headed by Professor Herman Waldmann. Monoclonal antibodies have proven invaluable both as tools in our research and as agents for intervention in the clinic. We are particularly interested in mechanisms of immune regulation, and how this knowledge may be used to reprogram the immune system in situations such as transplantation and autoimmunity. My main interest has been to investigate gene expression changes in a cell type important for presenting antigens to the immune system, to determine how the context of antigen encounter determines the type of response initiated.

Selected Publications:

C.A. Farquhar, A.M. Paterson, S.P. Cobbold, H. Garcia-Rueda, P.J. Fairchild, S.F. Yates, E. Adams, N.J. Saunders, H. Waldmann, and K.F. Nolan, 'Tolerogenicity is not an absolute property of a dendritic cell', European Journal of Immunology, 40:1728-37 (2010)

S.P. Cobbold, E. Adams, K.F. Nolan, F.S. Regateiro and H. Waldmann, 'Connecting the mechanisms of T cell regulation: dendritic cells as the missing link', Immunological Reviews, 236:203-18 (2010)

S.F. Yates, A.M. Paterson, K.F. Nolan, S.P. Cobbold, N.J. Saunders, H. Waldmann and P.J. Fairchild, 'Induction of regulatory T cells and dominant tolerance by dendritic cells incapable of full activation', Journal of Immunology, 179:967-76 (2007)

K.F. Nolan, V. Strong, D. Soler, P.J. Fairchild, S.P. Cobbold, R. Croxton, J-A. Gonzalo, A. Rubio, M. Wells and H. Waldmann, 'IL-10 conditioned dendritic cells, decommissioned for recruitment of adaptive immunity, elicit innate inflammatory gene products in response to danger signals', Journal of Immunology, 172:2201-09 (2004)

P.J. Fairchild, K.F. Nolan, S. Cartland, L. Graca and H. Waldmann, 'Stable lines of genetically modified dendritic cells from mouse embryonic stem cells', Transplantation, 76(3):606-8 (2003)