Dr Elma Tchilian

Elma joined Pirbright in January 2014 as group leader of Swine Influenza Immunology. She obtained her PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund before working as a postdoctoral fellow in Birmingham, Senior Research Scientist at the Edward Jenner Institute and Principal Investigator at Oxford University. Elma identified the leucocyte common antigen (CD45) as a cause of severe combined immunodeficiency in man. In Oxford she demonstrated the importance of local immunity in vaccine induced protection against tuberculosis.

Elma’s group at Pirbright is currently investigating:

• how best to harness local immunity in protection against swine influenza
• the use of aerosol delivery for novel vaccines
• how to develop a universal cross-protective swine influenza vaccine
• what factors contribute to transmission of swine influenza and
• the role of microbiota in immunity to influenza.

Elma’s lab has established a reproducible one-to-one transmission model for swine influenza, as well as showing that different methods of challenge (intra-nasal, aerosol or contact) influence greatly the amount of virus shed and the immune response. They have identified for the first time porcine lung tissue resident memory cells and shown that aerosol delivery is the most efficient way to induce heterosubtypic immunity against swine influenza in pigs. Elma is also developing the use of the pig as a model for human disease and immunotherapy.