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T-cell mediated immunity is reliant on the nature of the HLA-associated peptide pool presented on an infected cell or in tumour tissue. The specificity of this presentation determines the quality of the immunological response that can be elicited by cellular immune responses. Qualitative and quantitative characterization of these cellular immunopeptidomes in the context of cancer using mass spectrometry will be discussed.
Dr. Nicola Ternette is an Associate Professor and Head of the Antigen Discovery Group at the University of Oxford and is currently Co-Chair of the Human Proteome Organisation Immunopeptidomics Team (HUPO-HIPP). In 2015, she set up a specialized mass spectrometry facility at The Jenner Institute in collaboration with the Target Discovery Institute Mass Spectrometry Laboratory for the identification of HLA-ligands by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Currently, the Immunopeptidomics facility has two state-of-the-art mass spectrometry platforms and the Ternette group has expanded their expertise to deep sequencing of immunopeptidomes in multiple pathogen infection models, analysis of the antigenic landscape of solid tumours and haematological cancers and characterisation of antigens involved in autoimmune diseases. Her team is interested in understanding disease and treatment outcome association with the HLA gene locus, and the mechanisms associated. The group further investigates the consequences of interference with the antigen presentation machinery on HLA presentation in cancer, and is developing novel bioinformatics approaches to MS spectral interpretation for HLA cancer antigen discovery and prediction.