Neuro-Immune Interactions (held at the MRC WIMM on 27^th Feb 2024) was a half-day of talks designed to bring together researchers from neuroscience and immunology at Oxford.

The meeting was led by plenary talks from Professor Christopher Buckley and invited speaker Dr Franziska Denk, who highlighted the synergy between their work on fibroblasts in inflammation and the possible link to nerve injury and neuropathic pain.

Two sessions then featured rapid fire talks from early career researchers showcasing the breadth of interdisciplinary work undertaken across Oxford, ranging from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and autoimmune encephalitis, to obesity and cancer.

In total there were over 100 registrants for the event. A sample of attendees showed a roughly equal split between disciplines and a mixture of clinical, translational and basic researchers.

Feedback after the event was overwhelming positive.  The meeting clearly showed an appetite within Oxford for research on Neuro-Immune Interactions – a field that only looks set to grow in the coming years.

Ideas for future events include longer talks, and additional time allocated to poster presentations and networking with the aim of fostering neuro-immune collaborations within Oxford and beyond.

Neuro-Immune Interactions was organised by Alexander Davies, Shuaiwei Wang and Pao-Sheng Chang, with support from Bo Sun, Annina Schmid, Yin Dong, Sasi Senga, Sungwoo Song and the MRC WIMM team.

The organisers would like to acknowledge the support of NDCN Events team and the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship scheme in hosting the event.

Dr Davies’ research focuses on understanding the pathophysiology of nerve injury and neuropathic pain.

He completed his PhD training in neurophysiology with Professor R. Alan North at the University of Manchester. During postdoctoral training at Seoul National University in South Korea his work led to discoveries in spinal mechanisms of neuropathic pain and a clinically-relevant treatment for dental pain. Subsequently, as a NRF Junior Research Fellow, he led a team of international collaborators to reveal a novel immune mechanism of axon degeneration after peripheral nerve injury.

Since moving to the University of Oxford, he has developed methods to study human neuro-immune interactions in vitro, and currently leads several pilot studies phenotyping immune cell function in patients recovering from nerve injury.

Dr Davies was recently awarded a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in which he will investigate the mechanisms of cellular cytotoxicity in immune-mediated recovery from nerve injury. His long-term goals are to translate these biological discoveries into novel immune therapies for neuropathic pain.

Medical Research Foundation Child and Adolescent Cancer Pain (2024 - present)

UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Scheme (2022 - present)

Little Princess Trust - Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (2022 - 2024)

Human Immune Discovery Initiative - NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (2020 - 2022)