Owain Millington

+44 (0)141 548 4694
owain.millington@strath.ac.uk
Personal statement

I discovered my passion for immunology during my undergraduate studies at the University of Glasgow and subsequently undertook a PhD investigating mechanisms of mucosal immunology. I developed an interest in infectious diseases during postdoctoral work examining how malaria evades the immune system. Part of this project developed new microscopy approaches to visualise the immune system and examine fundamental processes of biology. This technology allowed us to watch the initial interactions between cells and determine how malaria subverts the immune system by interfering with these interactions.

I joined the University of Strathclyde in 2006 when I started on a prestigious RCUK Academic Fellowship in the Centre for Biophotonics. The interdisciplinary research in the Centre allows us to develop optical systems for examining, and manipulating, biological processes. Our current work is to apply these systems to elucidate the basic immuno-biology of Leishmania – a globally important parasitic disease that affects 150 million people in 88 countries worldwide. Creating new chemotherapeutic agents and/or vaccine strategies is essential in combatting the disease, but doing so will require a more complete understanding of the immune response associated with resistance. The site of Leishmania infection represents a complex and dynamic compartment with many factors regulating immune cell recruitment, retention and emigration from the site of infection. We are particularly interested in how this cell motility and migration is altered during Leishmania infection as alteration of these pathways may explain the chronic infections seen in some patients.