MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London
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Anne O’Garra elected to Royal Society
16 May 2008
The Royal Society elected on 16 May 2008 forty-four new Fellows, eight Foreign Members and one Honorary Fellow from the fields of science, engineering and technology. Fellows are elected for their contributions to science, both in fundamental research resulting in greater understanding, and also in leading and directing scientific and technological progress in industry and research establishments. A maximum of forty-four new Fellows, who must be citizens or residents of Commonwealth countries or Ireland, may be elected annually.
Research in immunoregulation
Dr O'Garra has worked for several years on interleukin-10 (IL-10) and IL-12. These are cytokines that play crucial roles in defining the immune response. She has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the intricate network of cell-cell and cytokine interactions responsible for inducing and inhibiting cellular immune responses. Importantly she first elucidated that interleukin 10 (IL-10) has broad immunosuppressive functions, inhibiting antigen presentation by dendritic cells and macrophages and their production of inflammatory cytokines. She elucidated fundamental mechanisms regulating the activation of T-cell subsets with distinct effector functions, discovering that: IL-12 induced T-helper 1 (Th1) cells secreting IFN, essential for eradication of intracellular pathogens; the key antigen presenting cell, the dendritic cell, produced IL-12, under tight control of IL-10. Her work is aiming to open up new avenues for improved adjuvants and vaccines for prevention or therapeutic intervention in infectious diseases. This is based upon close collaboration with NIMR's Divisions of Molecular Immunology, Immune Cell Biology, Parasitology, Virology and Mycobacterial Research, as well as some of the colleges and medical schools of London's Universities.
Brief biography
Anne O'Garra received her bachelor's degree in microbiology and biochemistry at the University of London in 1980. At NIMR, she earned her Ph.D. in microbiology in 1983, staying on there for a four-year post-doc in immunology. In 1987 she left England for Palo Alto, California, to work for the DNAX Research Institute, where by 2000 she had become a principal staff scientist in the department of immunobiology.
At the end of 2001 Dr. O'Garra moved back to NIMR, where she now heads the Division of Immunoregulation. In 2003 she achieved second place in the Thomson ISI Essential Science Indicators ranking of scientists in immunology, based on collective citations to papers published between 1993 and 2003. Two of her key papers - on the roles of IL-12 in the development of CD4+ T-cell responses and on IL-10 and its ability to block activation of cytokine synthesis - have garnered over 1,700 and 1,500 citations, respectively. In the last decade, her publications have included 20 papers that have each recorded more than 100 citations. In 2005 she was elected as a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and in 2006 as a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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