Winner of the Early Career Researcher Publication Prize for 2020

Robert Porter Early Career Researcher Publication Prize for Laboratory Based Sciences

Dr Adam Shahine, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Biomedicine Discovery Institute, School of Biomedical Sciences

The Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (MNHS) is committed to developing Faculty-based Early Career Researcher (ECR)* initiatives, to assist our ECRs in the development of their research careers. In addition to the emphasis placed on a strong track record in research publications and competitive funding, there is also the requirement for ECRs to secure competitive Prizes & Awards. In support of this, the Faculty Research Office offers the MNHS ECR Publication Prize.

*In FMNHS, an Early Career Researcher (ECR) is defined as academic staff (Levels A-C) within 10 years of their PhD conferral (taking career disruptions into account).

ECRs are invited to nominate one research publication from the previous year for the MNHS ECR Publication Prize.

A T-cell receptor escape channel allows broad T-cell response to CD1b and membrane phospholipids Nature Communications

Adam says: It is an absolute honour to be the recipient of the Robert Porter for Laboratory Based Sciences for this publication. I would like to acknowledge all co-authors and collaborators who took part in this exciting study. In particular, I’d like to thank my key supervisor and mentor Professor Jamie Rossjohn. This study married together flow cytometry, mass spectrometry, surface plasmon resonance, and x-ray crystallography, to describe the breadth of membrane phospholipids presented by the antigen presenting molecule CD1b, and the mechanisms of presentation to autoreactive T cells first isolated and characterised here. The importance of phospholipid antigen presentation has only been recently realised, which in the context of CD1b, have been found to mediate autoimmune diseases including T cell lymphoma and skin inflammation. One of the key findings from this study include the crystal structure of CD1b presenting a membrane phospholipid to a T cell receptor, which for the first time, may pave the way to understanding how these diseases occur. From this study, I was privileged to present this research at the CD1-MR1 EMBO Workshop conference in Oxford, UK in 2019, as well as Lorne Infection & Immunity and Lorne Proteins conferences in 2020.