Infection Medicine

Professor Sarah Howie

Professor of Immunopathology, MRC Centre for Inflammation Research

Profile

Sarah obtained her PhD in Immunology from the University of London in 1978. She did postdocs in University College London, the Basel Institute for Immunology and the University of Edinburgh. She was awarded a MRC Senior Fellowship in 1985 to work on immunity to Herpes Simplex virus. In 2005 she was awarded a personal chair in Immunopathology at the University of Edinburgh and her lab is based within the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research. In 2013 she was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Biology. Her main research interest has focussed on how the immune system and epithelial tissues interact in chronic inflammatory diseases including diseases with an infectious cause. Her current major focus is on chronic disease caused by high-risk human papillomavirus infection. Sarah also has collaborations that investigate: - consequences of chlamydial infection for female reproductive success; alterations in skin immune responses in atopic dermatitis; and, how the inflammatory response contributes to chronic lung fibrosis.

Selected Publication List (10)

  1. Mackenzie KJ, Fitch PM, Leech MD, Ilchmann A, Wilson C, McFarlane AJ, Howie SE, Anderton SM, Schwarze J. Combination peptide immunotherapy based on T-cell epitope mapping reduces allergen-specific IgE and eosinophilia in allergic airway inflammation. Immunology. 2013 Mar;138(3):258-68.
  2. Wang W, Hodkinson P, McLaren F, Mackean MJ, Williams L, Howie SE, Wallace WA, Sethi T. Histologic assessment of tumor-associated CD45(+) cell numbers is an independent predictor of prognosis in small cell lung cancer. Chest. 2013 Jan;143(1):146-51.
  3. Cho WS, Dart K, Nowakowska DJ, Zheng X, Donaldson K, Howie SE. Adjuvanticity and toxicity of cobalt oxide nanoparticles as an alternative vaccine adjuvant. Nanomedicine (Lond). 2012 Oct;7(10):1495-505.
  4. Devey LR, Richards JA, O'Connor RA, Borthwick G, Clay S, Howie AF, Wigmore SJ, Anderton SM, Howie SE. Ischemic preconditioning in the liver is independent of regulatory T cell activity. PLoS One. 2012;7(11):e49647.
  5. Gibbons MA, MacKinnon AC, Ramachandran P, Dhaliwal K, Duffin R, Phythian-Adams AT, van Rooijen N, Haslett C, Howie SE, Simpson AJ, Hirani N, Gauldie J, Iredale JP, Sethi T, Forbes SJ. Ly6Chi monocytes direct alternatively activated profibrotic macrophage regulation of lung fibrosis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2011 Sep 1;184(5):569-81.
  6. Howie SE, Horner PJ, Horne AW. Chlamydia trachomatis infection during pregnancy: known unknowns. Discov Med. 2011 Jul;12(62):57-64.
  7. Howie SE, Horner PJ, Horne AW, Entrican G. Immunity and vaccines against sexually transmitted Chlamydia trachomatis infection. Curr Opin Infect Dis. 2011 Feb;24(1):56-61.
  8. Fitch PM, Howie SE, Wallace WA. Oxidative damage and TGF-β differentially induce lung epithelial cell sonic hedgehog and tenascin-C expression: implications for the regulation of lung remodelling in idiopathic interstitial lung disease. Int J Exp Pathol. 2011 Feb;92(1):8-17.
  9. Norval M, Simpson TJ, Bardshiri E, Howie SE. Urocanic acid analogues and the suppression of the delayed type hypersensitivity response to Herpes simplex virus. Photochem Photobiol. 1989 May;49(5):633-9.
  10. Howie SE, Norval M, Maingay JP, Ross JA, Neill WA. The role of antigen presentation in the ontogeny of immune responses to herpes simplex virus. Clin Exp Immunol. 1988 May;72(2):201-6. PubMed PMID: 2842094.

Related Links

Research in a Nutshell video.

Professor Howie's group