Jack Frew (BSc (Hons) Immunology)

Thesis title: Identifying therapeutic targets that could transform Rheumatoid Arthritis from disease remission into cure

Biography

Background

Jack is an MRC DTP in Precision Medicine PhD student, with supervisors at the University of Glasgow, the Karolinska Institute, and the Gemelli University Hospital. Jacks research involves using novel transcriptomic and wet-lab approaches to understand why dendritic cells in remission rheumatoid arthritis are unable to restore tolerance, and drive patients to cure. 

Jack also graduated from the University of Glasgow with a First Class Honours degree in Immunology in June 2021. 

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Immunology with Honours of the first class

Undergraduate teaching

Demonstrator for 3rd and 4th Year Undergraduate Immunology Students in wet-lab and Bioinformatics areas. 

Current research interests

Jack’s PhD will primarily focus on classifying the interactions of distinct synovial tissue dendritic cell (DC) clusters with autologous T-cells in the healthy joint and in RA joints in disease remission. He will utilise wet-lab, and bioinformatic approaches, to identify the differences between DC driven self-maintained immune homeostasis of Healthy tissue and fragile immune homeostasis of remission. This will help to uncover the pathways where therapeutic targeting might transform remission into healthy immune homeostasis. Furthermore, Jack aims to identify what drives the differentiation of distinct synovial tissue DC clusters, and how these mechanisms change across disease states. Jack will design experiments to test whether fibroblasts from different disease states direct the differentiation and function of these DC clusters, and how these mechanisms may be targeted to restore tolerance in rheumatoid arthritis.
This article was published on