Professor Omer Dushek
About
Professor Omer Dushek is Professor of Molecular Immunology at the University of Oxford and heads the molecular immunology group (with Professor Anton van der Merwe) based at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology.
The group studies how important white blood cells called T cells control immune responses. These responses can be helpful when directed towards infections and cancers but can also be unhelpful leading to autoimmunity, allergy and transplant rejections.
Research is focused on understanding how T cells make these critical response decisions. The group aims to develop a quantitative understanding of how signals from many surface receptors are integrated into a T cell response decision and to use findings to improve existing immune therapies and to develop new ones.
Expertise
- Immune system
- Using the immune system for therapy, including for cancer therapy
- T cells
- Cell therapy
- Cancer therapy
- Chimeric antigen receptors
- T cell antigen receptor
- Surface plasmon resonance
Selected publications
- The molecular reach of antibodies crucially underpins their viral neutralisation capacity (Nature Communications, 2025)
- Using CombiCells, a platform for titration and combinatorial display of cell surface ligands, to study T-cell antigen sensitivity modulation by accessory receptors (The EMBO Journal, 2023)
- Inefficient exploitation of accessory receptors reduces the sensitivity of chimeric antigen receptors (PNAS, 2023)
- Mechanical forces impair antigen discrimination by reducing differences in T‐cell receptor/peptide–MHC off‐rates (The EMBO Journal, 2022)
- The discriminatory power of the T cell receptor (eLife, 2021)
- Molecular mechanisms of T cell sensitivity to antigen (Immunological Reviews, 2018)
- Architecture of a minimal signaling pathway explains the T-cell response to a 1 million-fold variation in antigen affinity and dose (PNAS, 2016)
- Phenotypic models of T cell activation (Nature Reviews Immunology, 2014)
Languages
English