|
Number of Visitors
since May 31, 2007: 274358 |
|
| Address | |
Hopital St-Luc
Centre de Recherche du CHUM
264 Blvd. Rene-Levesque Est, Local PEA-313
Montreal QC H2X 1P1
|
| |
| Tel | |
(514) 890-8000 ext. 35235 |
| Fax | |
(514) 412-7314 |
| Email | |
naglaa.shoukry@umontreal.ca |
| |
| Biography | |
Dr. Shoukry obtained her Pharmacy degree from the Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University (Cairo, Egypt) in 1991 and her Ph.D. in Immunology from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) in 2000. During her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Christopher Walker at Columbus Children’s Research Institute from 2000-2004, she has demonstrated the essential role of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in control of HCV infection in the chimpanzee model. These findings are considered corner stones that shaped the current dogma of protective immunity against HCV infection. Dr. Shoukry is the lead author on several publications and review articles in top tier journals including: Annual reviews, J. Exp. Med. and Science and the recipient of numerous awards from the American Liver Foundation (ALF), Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Fonds de la Recherche en Sante du Quebec (FRSQ) and Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l'Aide ?la Recherche (FCAR).
In January 2005, Dr. Shoukry became an Assistant Professor at the Department of Medicine, University of Montreal and started her research laboratory within the hepatology axis of the CHUM Research Centre at Saint Luc Hospital in Montreal, a state of the art new research centre dedicated to the study of HCV. Dr. Shoukry is a Chercheur boursier junior 1 of the FRSQ, a mentor in the National Canadian Research Training Program on Hepatitis C (NCRTP-HepC) and a member of the Unit?INSERM (Unit 743) for research on immunovirology in Montreal. She has been an invited speaker at a number of Canadian and US Universities. She is member of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD), a grant reviewer for CIHR and NIH and a regular reviewer for Hepatology.
RESEARCH PROGRAM
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects nearly 3% of the world population. The majority of individuals exposed to the virus become persistently infected and go on to develop chronic liver disease including liver cancer. There is no vaccine for HCV and the current treatment, a combination of pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin is expensive, not tolerated by many patients and is only partially effective. In particular, in individuals infected with genotype 1, the most prevalent genotype in North America. Development of new therapeutics and vaccines is hampered by our limited understanding of protective immunity against HCV and mechanisms of resistance to therapy.
My research program is funded by CIHR, FRSQ, NIH and the Dana Foundation. The aim of this program is to understand the underlying mechanisms in failure of the immune response during the majority of HCV infections and mechanisms of resistance to antiviral therapy. The end goal is to develop new vaccines, immune modulators and therapeutic strategies against HCV. To achieve these goals, my program comprises three integrated projects:
1. Role of acute phase immune responses: The aim of this project is to identify acute HCV infection within the St-Luc cohort of intravenous drug users in collaboration with Dr. Julie Bruneau and understand how early immune responses protect against chronic HCV infection. In addition, to define host and viral factors involved in immune evasion during this early phase. This project is focused on the T cell arm of the immune response. It is complimentary to other ongoing studies in my laboratory examining other host defence mechanisms including innate immunity and antibody responses during acute infection.
2. Role of HCV-specific immunity during antiviral therapy: Response to antiviral therapy is likely dictated by a combination of host and viral factors. Several HCV proteins have been reported to interact with cellular proteins and to impair host response to interferons. We are trying to understand whether the current treatment induces a direct antiviral effect or acts via an indirect immune-mediated effect by enhancing a pre-existing but defective or inefficient immune response. Furthermore, to monitor whether defects in the immune response associated with chronicity identified during acute infection can be reversed in individuals who respond well to antiviral therapy. Finally, to understand the viral factors and variation in the viral quasispecies associated with resistance and interference with the antiviral signalling pathways.
3. HCV-specific immunity in exposed uninfected individuals: This project is in collaboration with Dr. Sanaa Kamal, at Ain Shams Medical School, Cairo, Egypt. This collaborative project was established since Egypt has the highest prevalence of HCV in the world (20% of the population are seropositive for HCV). The goal is to characterize protective immunity in HCV exposed uninfected individuals. Our hypothesis is that these individuals develop a super protective immune response upon exposure to HCV resulting in sterilizing/protective immunity with no apparent infection. We are trying to understand the nature of the immune response in these super-protected individuals who are resistant to infection by HCV as a first step to vaccine development and to understanding the host factors that may influence the outcome of exposure to HCV.
All three research projects utilize an integrated cellular and molecular approach to understand protective immunity against HCV and identify factors that can influence the outcome of therapy and vaccines. We expect that this research program will allow us to identify new targets and participate actively in the design of new HCV vaccines and therapeutics within five years. In particular, immune modulators that may be used as adjuvants for current HCV therapy.
|
| |
| Testimony | |
|
| |
| Disciplines | |
Immunology |
[top] |
|
