Matthew Sweet
From
The University of Queensland - AU
In residence at
Infectiology and Public Health (ISP) / Centre INRAE Val de Loire, University of Tours - FR
Host scientist
Ronan Kapetanovic
BIOGRAPHY
Matt Sweet is a Group Leader at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Matt studies innate immunity, the body’s danger sensing system that responds to infection, injury and dysregulated homeostasis, and the role of this system in health and disease. More specifically, Matt’s research focuses on macrophages, the “big-eaters” of our innate immune system and how these cells both combat infectious diseases and drive pathology in many inflammation-driven diseases. The long-term goal of Matt’s research is to understand the molecular pathways that control macrophage functions in sufficient detail to enable manipulation of their functions for applied outcomes, such as the development of anti-infective and/or anti-inflammatory agents. To do so, Matt’s lab characterizes the roles of specific innate immune pattern recognition receptors and their downstream signalling pathways/gene products in inflammatory and infectious disease processes, with a particular focus on immune cell metabolism. Matt has authored approximately 190 published and in-press journal articles and book chapters, including in Science (2), Science Immunology (2), Science Translational Medicine, Nature Immunology, Nature Reviews Immunology, Nature Genetics, Nature Communications (5), PNAS USA (7), Cell Metabolism and many other leading journals in immunology, cell biology and biomedicine. Matt has also supervised or co-supervised more than 40 PhD students and has received multiple awards for his contributions to mentoring and leadership.
PROJECT
Evaluating an mRNA-based agent for anti-infective effects in immune cells from livestock animals
This project aims to evaluate a novel anti-infective approach that, in the longer-term, may have potential applications in the livestock sector. The approach involves enhancing a specific antibacterial response of macrophages, key immune cells involved in defending against and overcoming infectious diseases. The antibacterial response to be manipulated is zinc intoxication, in which macrophages mobilise zinc to fight pathogens through metal ion poisoning. We previously demonstrated that, in human macrophages, the zinc transport protein SLC30A1 can drive zinc intoxication of intracellular bacteria, enabling their killing. The project aims to boost this zinc intoxication response in primary macrophages from livestock animals (pig, chickens) via delivery of an mRNA encoding SLC30A1. It is anticipated that increasing SLC30A1 expression in pig and chicken macrophages through this means will weaponize them for more efficient killing of bacterial pathogens such as Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium that is particularly relevant to these two livestock species and that is one of the main causes of food poisoning in France.