Dr Doug Dyer, part of our stroke and brain inflammation themes, has been awarded a prestigious Wellcome Trust Career Development Award — an exceptional 8-year grant worth over £2M. 

Doug’s research will explore the role of chemokines and the glycocalyx in the context of stroke, offering vital insights that directly support our stroke and neuroimmunology themes. Many congratulations to Doug on this outstanding achievement. 

About the project

The immune system allows our body to kill bacteria and viruses (pathogens) that infect us. A key part of this system is how the cells that kill pathogens (immune cells) arrive where they are needed. 

Chemokines direct immune cells to sites of infection to enable our bodies to attack pathogens. However, sometimes this can be triggered when there is no infection, producing damage of healthy tissue. Excessive or unrequired immune cell recruitment to the brain is particularly important as the key cells of the brain (e.g. neurons) are unable to recover once damaged. As a result, immune cell recruitment contributes to a range of diseases such as stroke, concussion, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

Despite this integral role of chemokines, and over 20 years of research, there are no therapies in the clinic that target chemokines during inflammation because we do not fully understand how they work. Thus, drugs targeted at the specific processes mediated by chemokines are a strong prospect for future therapies. The project will identify specific steps in the inflammatory process to target and may highlight novel drugs to treat inflammatory diseases in the long term.

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