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Cambridge Immunology Network

 

Research

Our group aims to determine the development, regulation and function of B and T cell populations in health and immunological diseases. This will lead us to an understanding of why certain individuals are at greater risk of developing immunological disease, as well as to identify potential therapeutic targets or improved clinical management. This is achieved through the development and application of novel experimental and computational approaches, working in partnership with a global network of clinicians, immunologists and sample cohorts.

Immunological health relies on a balance between the ability to mount an immune response against potential pathogens and tolerance to self. B and T cells are key to the immune response by producing antibodies and cytotoxic T cells. Defects in the ability to mount effective B cell or T cell responses have been implicated in infectious susceptibility, impaired surveillance of cancer and immunodeficiencies, whereas a breakdown of immunological tolerance has been attributed to autoimmune diseases such as through autoantibody production and reduced numbers of regulatory B/T cells. By probing genetic diversity of immune receptors in B- and T-cell populations, we aim to answer key questions about disease dynamics in autoimmune disease, infectious disease, immunodeficiency and leukaemia, thus potentially opening avenues for new therapeutic targets, as well as potentially providing a new platform for disease monitoring to improve patient outcomes and quality of life.

Publications

Key publications: 

Antonio Agraz-Doblas, Clara Bueno, Rachael Bashford-Rogers, Anindita Roy, Pauline Schneider, Michela Bardini, Paola Ballerini, Gianni Cazzaniga, Thaidy Moreno, Carlos Revilla, Marta Gut, Maria G Valsecchi, Irene Roberts, Rob Pieters, Paola De Lorenzo, Ignacio Varela, Pablo Menendez, Ronald W Stam Unravelling The Cellular Origin And Clinical Prognostic Markers Of Infant B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Using Genome-Wide Analysis Heamatologica, 2019

Velislava N Petrova, Luke Muir, Paul F McKay, George S Vassiliou, Kenneth GC Smith, Paul A Lyons, Colin A Russell, Carl A Anderson, Paul Kellam, Rachael JM Bashford-Rogers. Combined influence of B-cell receptor rearrangement and somatic hypermutation on B-cell class-switch fate in health and in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia. Frontiers Immunology, 2018

Rachael J.M. Bashford-Rogers, Kenneth G.C. Smith and David C. Thomas. Antibody repertoire analysis in polygenic autoimmune diseases. Immunology, 2018

Sarah Horton, George Giotopoulos, Haiyang Yun, Shabana Vohra, Olivia Sheppard, Rachael Bashford-Rogers, Mamunur Rashid, Alex Clipson, Wai-In Chan, Daniel Sasca, Loukia Yiangou, Hikari Osaki, Faisal Basheer, Paolo Gallipoli, Natalie Burrows, Aysegul Erdem, Anastasiya Sybirna, Sarah Förster, Wanfeng Zhao, Tonci Sustic, Anna Petrukina Harrison, Elisa Laurenti, Jessica Okosun, Daniel Hodson, Penny Wright, Kenneth Smith, Patrick Maxwell, Jude Fitzgibbon, Ming-Qing Du, David Adams, and Brian Huntly. Early loss of Crebbp confers malignant stem cell properties on lymphoid progenitors. Nature Cell Biology, 2017

Tatsiana Audzevich, Rachel Bashford-Rogers, Neil A. Mabbott, Dan Frampton, Tom C Freeman, Alexandre Potocnik, Paul Kellam, Derek W Gilroy. Novel pre/pro-B cells generates macrophage populations during homeostasis and inflammation. PNAS, 2017

Rachael J. M. Bashford-Rogers, Anne L. Palser, Clare Hodkinson, Joanna Baxter, George A. Follows, George S. Vassiliou, and Paul Kellam. Dynamic variation of CD5 surface expression levels within individual chronic lymphocytic leukaemia clones. Experimental Hematology, 2016.

Bashford-Rogers, R. J., Nicolaou, K. A., Bartram, J., Goulden, N. J., Loizou, L., Koumas, L.,Chi, J., Hubank, M., Kellam, P., Costeas, P. A., Vassiliou, G. S. Eye on the B-ALL: B-cell receptor repertoires reveal persistence of numerous B-lymphoblastic leukemia subclones from diagnosis to relapse. Leukemia, 2016

Kalchschmidt, J. S., Bashford-Rogers, R., Paschos, K., Gillman, A. C., Styles, C. T., Kellam, P., Allday, M. J. "Epstein-Barr virus nuclear protein EBNA3C directly induces expression of AID and somatic mutations in B cells." J Exp Med 2016.

Hoehn KB, Gall A, Bashford-Rogers R, Fidler SJ, Kaye S, Weber JN, McClure MO, Investigators ST, Kellam P, Pybus OG. Dynamics of immunoglobulin sequence diversity in HIV-1 infected individuals. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B, Biological sciences 2015, 370(1676).

R Swann, R Bashford-Rogers, M Robinson, PR Mills, S Barclay, J McLauchlan, P Kellam, A Pate: PTU-110 What impact do hcv infection and subclinical cryoglobulinaemia have on the b cell repertoire? Gut, 2015

McCoy LE, Rutten L, Frampton D, Anderson I, Granger L, Bashford-Rogers R, Dekkers G, Strokappe NM, Seaman MS, Koh W et al: Molecular evolution of broadly neutralizing Llama antibodies to the CD4-binding site of HIV-1. PLoS pathogens 2014, 10(12):e1004552.

Bashford-Rogers RJ, Palser AL, Idris SF, Carter L, Epstein M, Callard RE, Douek DC, Vassiliou GS, Follows GA, Hubank M, Kellam P. Capturing needles in haystacks: a comparison of B-cell receptor sequencing methods. BMC Immunology 2014  5;15(1):29.

Archer EJ, Bashford-Rogers R, Hill B, Douek DC, Kellam P, Koup RA: Evolution of Antigen-specific B-cell Receptor Repertoires in Early SIV Infection. AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses. 2014

Bashford-Rogers RJ, Palser AL, Huntly BJ, Rance R, Vassiliou GS, Follows GA, Kellam P. Network properties derived from deep sequencing of human B-cell receptor repertoires delineate B-cell populations. Genome Research. 2013 Nov;23(11):1874-84. 

Cotten M, Watson SJ, Kellam P, Al-Rabeeah AA, Makhdoom HQ, Assiri A, Al-Tawfiq JA, Alhakeem RF, Madani H, AlRabiah FA, Al Hajjar S, Al-nassir WN, Albarrak A, Flemban H, Balkhy HH, Alsubaie S, Palser AL, Gall A, Bashford-Rogers R, Rambaut A, Zumla AI, Memish ZA. Transmission and evolution of the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus in Saudi Arabia: a descriptive genomic study. Lancet. 2013 

Developed Immune-Network-Generation program that performs novel analyses on B- and T-cell repertoires (publically available for use, 2013).

King ONF, Bashford-Rogers R, Maloney DJ, Jadhav A, Heightman TD, Simeonov A, Clifton IJ, Mcdonough MA, Schofield CJ. Crystal structure of factor inhibiting HIF-1 alpha complexed with inhibitor. PDB entry 3OD4 (2011).

Dr Rachael  Bashford-Rogers
Takes PhD students
Available for consultancy

Affiliations

Classifications: 
Departments and institutes: 
Person keywords: 
B cell receptor (BCR)
B cells
T cells
B cell lineage and repertoire development
T cell receptor (TCR)