Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed 5 August
19:00 - 19:45
Join the Malaghan Institute for an in-depth conversation with world-leading allergy researcher Professor Franca Ronchese and clinical immunologist Dr Maia Brewerton about the changing landscape of allergic disease research.
One in five Kiwis live with allergic disease of varying severity from mild to life-threatening. While no two people living with an allergic or inflammatory condition share the same experience, what all these life-long conditions share is a lack of effective ways to treat and prevent them.
Allergic disease treatment in New Zealand has seen a dramatic change in recent history moving from reactive, symptom-based management toward more proactive, personalised approaches.
At the same time, recent research is opening the doors to new opportunities – for the first time offering the possibility of not just managing symptoms, but preventing these debilitating conditions from occurring in the first place.
In this webinar, Franca and Maia will speak about their experiences at both the research side, and clinical side of allergic disease. During the talk they’ll cover topics such as:
How the approach to treating allergies has changed over recent years
How research is impacting the fight against allergic disease
What the future for treating and preventing allergic disease looks like
Your questions are welcome. Please send them to comms@malaghan.org.nz ahead of the event or ask them via the Teams chat during the webinar.
Dr Maia Brewerton (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) is a clinical immunologist, allergist and immunopathologist. She is the Clinical Immunology and Allergic Diseases Team Leader at the Malaghan Institute and sits on the Malaghan Institute’s Trust Board. She also works as a medical specialist at Auckland Hospital and heads the immunology laboratory at North Shore Hospital.
Professor Franca Ronchese is an Italian-New Zealand immunologist. She currently leads the Ronchese Laboratory at the Malaghan Institute. After a PhD at the University of Padua, Italy, Prof Ronchese worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Ronald Germain at the National Institutes of Health in the United States. After her postdoctoral studies, she joined the Basel Institute for Immunology, Switzerland, where she became interested in antigen presentation by dendritic cells in vivo. In 1994, Ronchese moved to New Zealand to establish her research programme at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research, with a focus on developing immune therapies for cancer and allergies.