Prof Elma Tchilian

Elma obtained her PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, before working as a postdoctoral fellow in Birmingham, Senior Research Scientist at the Edward Jenner Institute and Principal Investigator in Oxford. Elma identified the leucocyte common antigen (CD45) as a cause of severe combined immunodeficiency in man. She demonstrated the importance of local immunity in vaccine-induced protection against tuberculosis and influenza. 

Elma joined The Pirbright Institute in 2014 and is now Head of Mucosal Immunology. The goal of her research is to develop better prevention strategies for respiratory pathogens in animals and humans. She has established a powerful pig influenza model to study immune responses to and transmission of influenza viruses and to test efficacy of vaccines and therapeutics. Elma has developed many tools for studying porcine immune responses including peptide MHC tetramers, cell transfers, scintigraphy, porcine influenza specific monoclonal antibodies and has characterised the important tissue resident memory cells in the respiratory tract. More recently Elma’s group developed a porcine respiratory coronavirus model with many similarities to the human acute respiratory coronavirus disease to further understand these high consequence pathogens. These studies demonstrate the utility of the pig as a biomedical model for development of novel control strategies for both human and animal health.