Dr Sarah Young

Research Interest: vaccines, cytokines, tumours, TB
Year of Appointment: 2003
Training: BSc PhD(Otago)

Sarah Young’s research has focused primarily on vaccine development. Of particular interest is making vaccines work more effectively by manipulating the immune response with immune hormones or cytokines. These generated vaccine have been used in tumour models, and in infectious disease models.

One avenue of vaccine design is developing new DNA-based vaccines for TB and influenza. These DNA vaccines incorporate immunomodulators to help give the immune system the right signals to make a protective response.

Another type of vaccine under development is virus-like particles (VLP). These are inert capsids of viruses, which can be manipulated to contain different peptides. These particulate VLP are then used as a vaccine against different pathogens.

Other Activities

• Vice President of the Otago Institute (Otago branch of the Royal Society)

Selected Publications from the last 5 years

Young SL, Slobbe L, Wilson R, Buddle BM, De Lisle G, Buchan GS. (2007). Environmental strains of Mycobacterium avium interfere with immune responses associated with BCG vaccination. Infect Immun.75(6) 2833-2840.

Young SL, Wilson M, Wilson S, Beagley KW, Ward VK, Baird MA. (2006) Transcutaneous vaccination with virus-like particles. Vaccine 24(26):5406-5412.

Young SL, Buchan G, Slobbe LJ, Williman J, Wilson M, Ward V, Franken M, Baird M. Novel vaccine formulations to enhance Type 1 immune responses. Immunology 2004 (2004) 1:555-563.

Young SL, Murphy M, Zhu XW, Harnden P, Selby PJ, James K, Jackson AM. (2004) Cytokine-modified Mycobacterium smegmatis as a novel anticancer immunotherapy. Intl.J. Cancer 112:653-660.

Young SL, Simon MA, Baird MA, Tannock GW, Bibiloni R, Spencely K, Lane JM, Fitzharris P, Crane J, Town I, Addo-Yobo E, Murray CS, Woodcock A. (2004). Bifidobacterial species differentially affect expression of cell surface markers and cytokines of dendritic cells harvested from cord blood. Clin. Diag. Lab. Immunol. 11:686-690.

Baird M, Wilson R, Young L, Williman J, Young S, Wilson M, Slobbe L, Lockhart, E and Buchan, G Bystander help, within a polyepitope DNA vaccine, improves immune responses to influenza antigens. (2004) Scand J Immunol 60:363-371.

Mears R, Craven RA, Hanrahan S, Totty N, Upton C, Young SL, Patel P, Selby PJ, Banks RE. (2004) Proteomic analysis of melanoma-derived exosomes by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D PAGE) and mass spectrometry. Proteomics 4:4019-4031.

Young SL, O'Donnell MA, Buchan GS. (2002) Interleukin 2 secreting recombinant BCG can overcome a Type 2 immune response and corticosteroid induced immunosuppression to elicit a Type 1 immune response. Int. Immunol. 14:793-800.

Young SL, O'Donnell M, Lockhart E, Buddle B, Slobbe L, Luo Y, De Lisle GW, Buchan GS. (2002) Manipulation of immune responses to Mycobacterium bovis by vaccination with IL-2 and IL-18 secreting recombinant BCG. Immunol. Cell. Biol. 80:209-215.

Young, S. L., Murphy, M., & Jackson, A. M. (2001). Recombinant M. smegmatis secreting IL-15 is efficacious against bladder cancer in vivo. Immunology, 104 .(Suppl. 1), (pp. 34-35).