Matthew Call

Associate Professor Call moved to Melbourne from Harvard Medical School, USA to take up the position of Laboratory Head within the Structural Biology Division of The Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Research project: Intramembrane mechanics of immunoreceptor activation

Cells of the immune system actively survey their surroundings for signs of infection or cancer to initiate an appropriate immune response.

Matthew’s research focuses on the structure and function of the molecular sensors used by these cells to detect such dangerous events. Portions of these sensors are deeply embedded in the cell membrane where they are exceedingly difficult to study, yet these very domains likely perform crucial roles in transmitting environmental information to the cell interior and are thus excellent targets for developing new drugs.

He recently developed innovative biochemical and biophysical techniques that open a view into this ‘blind spot’ in immune signalling and discovered important features of receptor structure that were previously inaccessible.

With access to Victoria’s world-class bioresearch facilities and potential collaborations with scientists such as Peter Colman who have a wealth of experience developing new pharmaceuticals using molecular structures, he will build upon these discoveries to push beyond static views of receptor structure and describe the molecular forces controlling immune activation.

This level of regulation in immune signalling is almost completely unstudied, and Matthew believe it will lead to entirely new therapeutics for controlling immune responses in a wide variety of disease states.