Dr Mahsa Rafieiyan

Mahsa Rafieiyan is a Postdoctoral Scientist in the T-cell Biology Group at The Pirbright Institute. Her research focuses on cellular immune responses to viral infections, with a particular interest in antigen-specific CD8 T-cell responses and the identification of T-cell epitopes that contribute to immunity.

Mahsa has a background in molecular biology and immunology. She completed her PhD in Molecular and Clinical Medicine at the Università degli Studi di Palermo, where she investigated HLA-E-restricted CD8 T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2-derived epitopes and their role in antiviral immunity. Her research combined immune-cell based assays, multicolour flow cytometry and epitope discovery to characterise antigen-specific T-cell responses. 

At Pirbright, Mahsa works on understanding T-cell immunity in pigs during viral infection. Her current research focuses on porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and the role of virus-specific CD8 T cells at the maternal-foetal interface. Using immunological assays including IFN-γ ELISpot, intracellular cytokine staining, flow cytometry, epitope mapping, and SLA peptide prediction, she is identifying PRRSV-specific T-cell epitopes and supporting the development of SLA class I tetramers to track virus-specific CD8 T-cell responses.

Her work aims to use these tetramers to track virus-specific CD8⁺ T cells at the maternal-foetal interface and compare immune responses in healthy and diseased foetuses, thereby improving our understanding of protective immunity versus immunopathology.