Dr Nicola Darling
Tenure Track Fellow Biochemistry, Cell and Systems Biology
Research
Research Overview
The cells in our immune system must be tightly co-ordinated to give an effective immune response and this is required to defend healthy tissues from damage due to cellular injury, infection, or irritants. The aim of my research is to improve our understanding of how these processes are controlled, which will provide the information required to develop new therapeutic strategies.
Signalling in mast cells
Mast cells are a type of innate immune cell resident in most of our tissues. Mast cells contain pre-formed inflammatory mediators, which are stored within granules and are rapidly released in response to activation signals. Inappropriate release of granule contents drives allergic diseases including asthma and anaphylaxis as well as non-allergic diseases including mast cell activation syndrome and disease resulting from viral infection. Important mast cell products include histamine (promotes blood flow to affected organs), serotonin (drives digestive symptoms and nausea) and proteases (digest target proteins including toxins) and these can drive disease symptoms when they are released inappropriately or in excess.
It is currently not fully understood which intracellular signalling pathways control granule production, formation of granule contents and release of inflammatory mediators from granules. My lab uses a combination of biochemical and proteomic approaches to investigate the intracellular signalling pathways that regulate these important processes.