Completed Infection & Immunity Genetics & Molecular Biology

Innate Immunity and Host Species Barriers

Funder MRC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation University of Glasgow
Funding £3.0M
Period Mar 2016 — Mar 2023

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Every time a bat sneezes or a pig coughs, a virus might be taking a test flight into human cells. This project maps the antiviral defences that stop those flights from landing. Most emerging infectious diseases—from flu to Ebola—originate in animals. But only a tiny fraction of animal viruses ever infect humans. The barrier is not luck; it is a complex, species-specific immune system that has evolved over millions of years. Scientists do not yet know which of these defences are universal, which are unique to bats or pigs, and which human viruses have already learned to bypass. Without that map, predicting the next pandemic is guesswork. The team will catalogue antiviral genes in humans, bats, and pigs, then test each defence against viruses known to threaten people. If they succeed, the result will be a molecular risk-assessment tool: a way to rank animal viruses by their likelihood of jumping species. This could shift pandemic preparedness from reactive—waiting for an outbreak—to proactive, flagging dangerous viruses before they ever reach a human. This is fundamental science. It will not produce a vaccine or a drug tomorrow. But understanding the innate immune system’s hidden architecture has, in the past, unlocked everything from cancer immunotherapy to antiviral treatments. A clearer picture of how species barriers work is the foundation for whatever comes next.

View original technical description
Innate Immunity and Host Species Barrier Prof Massimo Palmarini and Dr Sam Wilson, Lead Investigators, with Dr Robert Gifford as a co-investigator and in collaboration with Prof James Neil, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), University of GlasgowViral diseases are often in the news because of their ability to suddenly cause an 'outbreak' in human populations. Often this is due to the ability of a virus from animals to 'jump' into humans and start causing disease. Currently, we don't fully understand how viruses 'jump' from one species to another, which hinders our ability to predict which viruses could threaten people in the future. Humans and the animals we share our environment with have all been plagued by viral diseases (some of which are life-threatening) for millions of years. To resist infection, animals have evolved an arsenal of different antiviral defences and every animal has evolved a unique set of these defences. Importantly, these defences can sometimes stop a virus from 'jumping' into a new species. By mapping the antiviral defences in humans and selected domestic and wild animals (like bats and pigs) we will catalogue the diversity of these defences in humans and 'animal reservoirs' of viral diseases. We will use this information to measure the ability of each individual defence to inhibit viruses that threaten human populations. We hope to identify the specific genes that leave us vulnerable to or protect us from the viral diseases circulating in animal populations.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Massimo Palmarini (Principal Investigator)Sam Wilson (Co-Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

The Innate Immune Barriers that Constrain the Emergence of Coronaviruses into the Human Population
Antiviral restriction factors: Understanding determinants of host range and barriers to species-jumping in livestock viral disease
Virus cross-species transmission. Defining the immunological barriers to viral emergence
Elucidating the origins and evolution of antiviral defence systems in animals
Three species viral zoonotic infections - a systems virology analysis

Original classification

Intramural

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.