Dr Adefunke Ogunkanbi

Teaching and scholarship

My aim as a lecturer is to motivate and support students to achieve their goals, to enable them to develop skills and knowledge to attain successful careers in science and become future global leaders. I believe that effective learning is achieved not only when students are able to retain and apply knowledge but when they can become creative in problem solving. I engage students in active learning by giving them opportunities to talk about what they are learning and develop their own ideas. My teaching includes lectures, workshops, practicals and tutorials. I encourage students to ask questions and engage them in critical thinking.

My teaching style is interactive and supportive, incorporating critical analysis of published research articles. I take students through the processes of experimental designs, how to generate research questions and testing hypotheses. I encourage students to develop an enquiring attitude and promote problem solving skills. Through active, personal and peer learning, I aim to improve the student learning experience. I engage students with formative assessments including quizzes, group discussions and presentations to enhance their learning.

My research is in the field of parasitology and immunology. I am particularly interested in helminths immunomodulation. Parasitic helminth infections affect more than 1 billion people globally and the infection can last for several years. This symbiotic relationship reflects the co-evolutionary adaptation to host protective immune responses. Both human and mouse studies have shown an inverse relationship between helminth infection and immune-mediated diseases.  My research focus is to understand how parasitic helminths evade host protective immune responses and to exploit the pathways involved in development of biotherapeutics against the parasite and immune-mediated disorders. In order to answer these questions, I have been investigating parasite-derived secretomes and their ability to modulate host immune responses using cell-based assays, protein-protein interactions and in vivo models of allergic asthma, sterile and infection-driven acute lung injury. I have also used bioinformatics, transcriptomics and proteomics analysis to address my research questions. My projects will focus on characterising the excretory-secretory (ES) molecules from parasitic helminths, generating parasite-derived recombinant proteins and investigating their modulatory activities in in-vitro assays, ex-vivo, and in vivo models of diseases.

Small group teaching offers an excellent platform for students to actively engage in learning. Activities during my tutorials include individual and group presentations, discussion, journal clubs and formative assessments to develop students’ critical analysis and transferable skills. My tutorial topic is in the field of immunology and infectious diseases with a major emphasis on innate immunity.

Publications

Publications

Colomb, Florent, *Adefunke Ogunkanbi, Abhishek Jamwal, Beverly Dong, Rick M. Maizels, Constance AM Finney, James D. Wasmuth, Matthew K. Higgins, and Henry J. McSorley. "IL-33-binding HpARI family homologues with divergent effects in suppressing or enhancing type 2 immune responses." Infection and Immunity (2024): e00395-23.  (joint first authorship)

Chauché, Caroline, Francesco Vacca, Shin Li Chia, Josh Richards, William F. Gregory, *Adefunke Ogunkanbi, Martin Wear, and Henry J. McSorley. "A truncated form of HpARI stabilizes IL-33, amplifying responses to the cytokine." Frontiers in Immunology 11 (2020): 1363.

Vacca, Francesco, Caroline Chauche, Abhishek Jamwal, Elizabeth C. Hinchy, Graham Heieis, Holly Webster, *Adefunke Ogunkanbi et al. "A helminth-derived suppressor of ST2 blocks allergic responses." Elife 9 (2020): e54017.