2005 ASBMB Fellowship: Lauren Ely

Lauren Ely Lauren undertook her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Melbourne in 1998. After majoring in Pharmacology, she embarked on a collaborative honours project with Dr Tony Hughes of the Drug Discovery Laboratory and Dr Philip Thompson at the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases (Department of Medicine, Monash University) investigating the ability of selective phosphodiesterase inhibitors to prevent platelet aggregation. In April 2002, Lauren met Dr Jamie Rossjohn and was introduced to the world of protein crystallography. At this point she decided to pursue a PhD project in the Protein Crystallography Unit at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University with Dr Rossjohn investigating the structural basis of T-cell receptor binding. Lauren was awarded a Dora Lush National Health and Medical Research Council postgraduate scholarship to support her throughout her PhD candidateship. Lauren also recently received a high commendation in the 2005 Victorian Premier's Award for Medical Research.

The T-cell receptors play a fundamental role in our adaptive immune response, selectively recognising pathogen and tumour peptide antigens presented on the cell surface by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. The interaction between these T-cell receptors and antigen-MHC complexes has been the focus of Lauren's PhD studies. During her investigations Lauren has determined the structures of several of these immune receptors by X-ray crystallography. These studies have contributed to identifying structural reasons for T-cell mediated organ-graft rejection. Lauren has further characterised the T-cell receptor interactions using biophysical techniques. Her research has contributed to studies that have expanded our knowledge about how T-cell receptors bind to the peptide-MHC complex and how this may influence T-cell signalling. The most significant of these investigations, which described the energetic landscape of a highly characterised T-cell receptor, was published in em>>Nature Immunology> earlier this year.

The ASBMB fellowship will allow Lauren to travel to the joint FEBS congress and IUBMB conference on 'Protein and Peptides: Structure, Function and Organisation' in July where she will present recent results regarding T-cell receptor binding thermodynamics.

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This page last modified: October 10, 2008.