Elizabeth Sapey

Dr.

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Liz’s research interests focus on understanding why chronic inflammatory diseases are so heterogeneous in their presentation and course. The research includes two interrelated themes:

1. The role of innate immunity in disease pathogenesis, especially its role in tissue damage during ageing, chronic lung disease (COPD) and acute lung infections (primarily pneumonia). Aberrant neutrophil functions have been implicated in the tissue damage and poor bacterial clearance seen in each of these areas. She has focused on how neutrophil behaviour (and cell signalling) in the presence of inflammation alters in health and disease, in particular, how inaccurate migration and reduced phagocytosis lead to increased inflammatory burden and poorer clinical outcomes.

2. The need to characterise clinical and inflammatory phenotypes in frailty ageing, and chronic disease to better inform therapeutic targeting. This work includes studying how disease manifests in its most early stages, assessing physiological techniques that better diagnose both disease and decline, understanding the shared risk from other chronic inflammatory co-morbidities and utilising outcome measures that reflect pathology.

20002024

Research activity per year

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