Alexandra Spencer Lorne Infection and Immunity 2023

Alexandra Spencer

Dr Spencer is an immunology lecturer in the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, based at the Hunter Medical Research Institute. Her research is focused on understanding how the immune response is induced following vaccination or infection, to enabling tailoring vaccines approaches for each specific disease. Following a PhD at the University of Sydney, Dr Spencer moved to the University of Oxford to apply her knowledge of T cells to the development of a liver-stage malaria vaccine. She was involved in the development of new vaccine vectors (ChAdOx1 and ChAdOx2), identification of new adjuvants, optimising antigen design and vaccination regimens, working across several vaccine programs (malaria, Influenza, Ebola, SARS CoV2). The translational focus of the Jenner Institute enabled Dr Spencer to follow some of these approaches from preclinical studies to clinical trials, working with both academic collaborators and industrial partners. As part of the Oxford COVID vaccine team, Dr Spencer performed the preclinical assessment of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, measuring immunogenicity across a range of animal species, in combination with mRNA vaccines and rapidly testing each new SARS CoV-2 variant vaccine. One of the biggest challenges in vaccinology is inducing an immune response at the primary site of pathogen exposure (i.e. nose and throat), sites that are not typically accessible by standard routes of vaccination (i.e. intramuscular injection). Having recently relocated back to Australia, Dr Spencer is currently establishing a research group at the University of Newcastle. Future work of her group will compare vaccine platforms and vaccination regimens/routes for their ability to induce and maintain T and B cell responses at these remote sites.