Welcome to The Graham Group
Ecological and evolutionary immunology

Our research focuses upon how parasites interact with the immune system. We ultimately aim to understand how natural selection has shaped strategies for both host defense and parasite transmission. Our laboratory methods will be familiar to immunologists, but our questions as well as our statistical and mathematical methods are drawn from evolutionary ecology.

Of the myriad molecules that power the mammalian immune system, our favorites are cytokines and antibodies. Cytokines are intercellular signalling molecules that determine the type and magnitude of parasite-killing mechanisms enabled; antibodies are among the most potent and specific of those mechanisms. We assess the immunological conflicts posed by co-infection, as well as the effects of overzealous cytokine and antibody responses upon both host and parasite fitness. For more details, please see the Research and Papers pages.