My group investigate host-pathogen interactions in order to increase our mechanistic understanding of protective and pathogenic immune responses in infectious diseases, and inform the development of novel therapies or approaches for patient stratification. We particularly focus on innate immunity by modelling host-pathogen interactions in human macrophages. Although macrophages are important sentinels of the immune system, which can sense and respond to danger, restrict pathogens by intracellular killing pathways and regulate wide-ranging immune responses, they also host a number of important human pathogens such as HIV-1 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Hence we are interested in the mechanisms by which these pathogens can either evade host defence mechanisms in macrophages or stimulate harmful immune responses. Our work extends from in vitro laboratory models to challenge experiments in humans and sampling of tissues at the site of disease in order to understand host-pathogen interactions in vivo. In view of the multivariate complexity of the immune response in infectious diseases, we use genome‑wide transcriptional profiling strategies in order to obtain a systems level view together with detailed molecular resolution. Within the Division of Infection & Immunity at UCL, we work closely with Professor Benny Chain’s group who focus on developing computational approaches to interrogate high dimensional data in immunology.