Linterman Laboratory

Investigating ways to generate robust immune responses to infectious diseases across the lifespan.

Ageing is one of the biggest determining risk factors in the outcome of diseases, yet how the immune system changes as we age is still poorly understood.

The Linterman Lab's research focuses on how different cell types collaborate to generate robust protective immune responses throughout the lifespan. Specifically, the team focuses on germinal centres – immunological structures that form following infection or vaccination, whose size and quality wanes as we age.

The team’s work combines pre-clinical research alongside human studies to deliver mechanistic insight into the germinal centre response that is of direct relevance to human health.

Research areas

Research projects

Ageing immunity
Germinal centre biology
Vaccinology
Tissue immunity

Dr Theresa Pankhurst

Te Urungi Research Fellow

Featured publications

Guillaume SM, Foster WS, San Martín Molina I, Watson EM, Innocentin S, Kennedy GM, Denton AE*, Linterman MA*. *Joint senior authors (2025). Lung B cells in ectopic germinal centers undergo affinity maturation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Apr 8;122(14):e2416855122.

Lee JL, Innocentin S, Silva-Cayetano A, Guillaume SM, Linterman MA (2023). B Cells from Aged Mice Do Not Have Intrinsic Defects in Affinity Maturation in Response to Immunization. Journal of Immunology. 2023 Nov 15.

Silva-Cayetano A, Fra-Bido S, Robert PA, Innocentin S, Burton AR, Watson EM, Lee JL, Webb LMC, Foster WS, McKenzie RCJ, Bignon A, Vanderleyden I, Alterauge D, Lemos JP, Carr EJ, Hill DL, Cinti I, Balabanian K, Baumjohann D, Espeli M, Meyer-Hermann M, Denton AE, Linterman MA. (2023). Spatial dysregulation of T follicular helper cells impairs vaccine responses in aging. Nature Immunology.

Burton AR, Guillaume SM, Foster WS, Wheatley AK, Hill DL, Carr EJ*, Linterman MA*. *Joint senior authors (2022). The memory B cell response to influenza vaccination is impaired in older persons. Cell Reports. 2022 Nov 8;41(6):111613.

Denton AE, Dooley J, Cinti I, Silva-Cayetano A, Fra-Bido S, Innocentin S, Hill DL, Carr EJ, McKenzie ANJ, Liston A and Linterman MA. (2022). Targeting TLR4 during vaccination boosts MAdCAM-1+ lymphoid stromal cell activation and promotes GC responses in aging. Science Immunology. 2022 May 6;7(71):eabk0018.

Silva-Cayetano A†, Foster WS†, Innocentin S†, Belij-Rammerstorfer S, Spencer AJ, Burton OT, Fra-Bidó S, Lee JL, Thakur N, Conceicao C, Wright D, Barett J, Evans-Bailey N, Noble C, Bailey D, Liston A, Gilbert SC, Lambe T*, Linterman MA*. *Joint senior authors, †Joint first authors. (2021) A booster dose enhances immunogenicity of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 in aged mice. Med. 2021 Mar 12;2(3):243-262.e8.