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Professor Eric Vivier

29 April 2015

Studying the immune system to treat disease is fundamental to the work of many researchers at the Malaghan Institute and so the visit of Professor Eric Vivier, Director of the Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, has been eagerly anticipated.

Dr Lindsay Ancelet, Research Fellow in our cancer vaccine programme says, “Professor Vivier’s research focuses on innate immune cells, particularly natural killer cells and their role in disease. His work has led to the development of a new drug that modulates the activity of natural killer cells and is currently being tested in clinical trials for a number of cancers. It is hoped that immunotherapy for cancer can be improved by combining treatments that activate the innate arm of the immune system, such as those developed by Prof Vivier, with therapies that target adaptive immune responses.”

Professor Vivier’s visit has been organized by the Australasian Society for Immunology as part of their Visiting Speaker Programme and the Malaghan Institute was his only stop in New Zealand. He is currently on sabbatical at the Walter and Elizabeth Hall Institute in Australia until July.