个人简介

Dr Starkey is an NHMRC early career post-doctoral fellow (Peter Doherty Biomedical Fellow) at the Priority Research Centre's for GrowUpWell and Lung Health and School of Biomedical Science and Pharmacy. He is a member of Professor Phil Hansbro's research team based at the Hunter Medical Research Institute. Dr Starkey is an immunologist and microbiologist interested in how respiratory challenges in early-life impair the normal development of the lung and a healthy immune system and how this may predispose to chronic diseases such as asthma, emphysema and diabetes. His work is substantially contributing to understanding the basic molecular and cellular mechanisms driving chronic diseases. Indeed his work has made important contributions and led to the identification of novel therapeutic strategies that are under further investigation. Dr Starkey uses novel mouse models that recapitulate the hallmark features of human disease, including infections, asthma and diabetes. He employs these models to understand how the immune system works, and to advance knowledge on the fundametal processes for underpinning respiratory dysfunction. His work has substantially furthered the understanding of the deleterious effects of infection in early life and how these infections have long-term consequences for the respiratory and immune systems. More recently he has modeled infection-induced severe asthma and emphysema and is identifying strategies for treating these severe forms of disease

研究领域

Immunology and Microbiology

Our research involves the use of well-established models of respiratory bacterial and viral infections to understand the immunological mechanisms underpinning the development of chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma and emphysema. A particular interest is how infections in early-life predispose to disease in later-life. We are also exploring how respiratory infections exacerbate exisiting lung disease such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). We have models of Chlamydia, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Influenza, Respiratory syncytial virus, Rhinovirus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa respiratory infections that we superimpose with models of asthma and emphysema/COPD. We investigate the role of specific molecules in these systems using transgenic animal models (knock-out, knock-in, reporter systems) and inhibitory compounds (monoclonal antibodies, small molecule inhibitors) to identify potential therapeutic targets. We also adopt a translational approach where we take our key observations from our models and look for these molecules/pathways in human tissue. In more recent studies, we have become interested in the basic process underpinning normal mammalian lung development. We hypothesise that the immune system plays a currently unknown role in regulating stem cell maintainence and lung development.

近期论文

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2016 Russell KE, Chung KF, Clarke CJ, Durham AL, Mallia P, Footitt J, et al., 'The MIF antagonist ISO-1 attenuates corticosteroid-insensitive inflammation and airways hyperresponsiveness in an ozone-induced model of COPD', PLoS ONE, 11 (2016) [C1] 2016 Kim RY, Rae B, Neal R, Donovan C, Pinkerton J, Balachandran L, et al., 'Elucidating novel disease mechanisms in severe asthma.', Clin Transl Immunology, 5 e91 (2016) 2016 Haw TJ, Starkey MR, Nair PM, Pavlidis S, Liu G, Nguyen DH, et al., 'A pathogenic role for tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease', Mucosal Immunology, 9 859-872 (2016) [C1] 2016 Gold MJ, Hiebert PR, Park HY, Stefanowicz D, Le A, Starkey MR, et al., 'Mucosal production of uric acid by airway epithelial cells contributes to particulate matter-induced allergic sensitization.', Mucosal Immunol, 9 809-820 (2016) 2016 Starkey MR, Nguyen DH, Brown AC, Essilfie AT, Kim RY, Yagita H, et al., 'Programmed Death Ligand 1 Promotes Early-Life Chlamydia Respiratory Infection-Induced Severe Allergic Airway Disease.', Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol, 54 493-503 (2016) 2015 Essilfie A, Horvat JC, Kim RY, Mayall JR, Pinkerton JW, Beckett EL, et al., 'Macrolide therapy suppresses key features of experimental steroid-sensitive and steroid-insensitive asthma', Thorax Journal, 70 458-467 (2015) [C1] 2015 Kim RY, Horvat JC, Pinkerton JW, Starkey MR, Essilfie AT, Mayall JR, et al., 'MicroRNA-21 drives severe, steroid-insensitive experimental asthma by amplifying phosphoinositide 3-kinase-mediated suppression of histone deacetylase 2', Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, (2015) 2015 Hsu ACY, Starkey MR, Hanish I, Parsons K, Haw TJ, Howland LJ, et al., 'Targeting PI3K-p110a suppresses influenza virus infection in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease', American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 191 1012-1023 (2015) [C1] 2014 Starkey MR, Nguyen DH, Essilfie AT, Kim RY, Hatchwell LM, Collison AM, et al., 'Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand translates neonatal respiratory infection into chronic lung disease.', Mucosal Immunol, 7 478-488 (2014) [C1] 2014 Hansbro PM, Starkey MR, Mattes J, Horvat JC, 'Pulmonary immunity during respiratory infections in early life and the development of severe asthma', Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 11 S297-S302 (2014) [C1] 2013 Starkey MR, Nguyen DH, Kim RY, Nair PM, Brown AC, Essifie A-T, et al., 'Programming of the Lung in Early Life by Bacterial Infections Predisposes to Chronic Respiratory Disease', CLINICAL OBSTETRICS AND GYNECOLOGY, 56 566-576 (2013) [C1] 2013 Hansbro PM, Scott GV, Essilfie A-T, Kim RY, Starkey MR, Nguyen D, et al., 'Th2 cytokine antagonists: Potential treatments for severe asthma', Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs, 22 49-69 (2013) [C1] 2013 Starkey MR, Jarnicki AG, Essilfie A-T, Gellatly SL, Kim RY, Brown AC, et al., 'Murine models of infectious exacerbations of airway inflammation', CURRENT OPINION IN PHARMACOLOGY, 13 337-344 (2013) [C1] 2013 Starkey MR, Essilfie A-T, Horvat JC, Kim RY, Nguyen DH, Beagley KW, et al., 'Constitutive production of IL-13 promotes early-life Chlamydia respiratory infection and allergic airway disease', Mucosal Immunology, 6 569-579 (2013) [C1] 2012 Beckett EL, Phipps S, Starkey MR, Horvat JC, Beagley KW, Foster PS, Hansbro PM, 'TLR2, but not TLR4, is required for effective host defence against chlamydia respiratory tract infection in early life', PLOS One, 7 e39460 (2012) [C1] 2012 Starkey MR, Kim RY, Beckett EL, Schilter HC, Shim D, Essilfie A-T, et al., 'Chlamydia muridarum lung infection in infants alters hematopoietic cells to promote allergic airway disease in mice', PLoS One, 7 e42588 (2012) [C1] 2012 Hansbro PM, Starkey MR, Kim RY, Stevens RL, Foster PS, Horvat JC, 'Programming of the lung by early-life infection', Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 3 153-158 (2012) [C1] 2011 Preston JA, Thorburn AN, Starkey MR, Beckett EL, Horvat JC, Wade MA, et al., 'Streptococcus pneumoniae infection suppresses allergic airways disease by inducing regulatory T-cells', European Respiratory Journal, 37 53-64 (2011) [C1] 2010 Horvat JC, Starkey MR, Kim RY, Beagley KW, Preston JA, Gibson PG, et al., 'Chlamydial respiratory infection during allergen sensitization drives neutrophilic allergic airways disease', Journal of Immunology, 184 4159-4169 (2010) [C1] 2010 Horvat JC, Starkey MR, Kim RY, Phipps S, Gibson PG, Beagley KW, et al., 'Early-life chlamydial lung infection enhances allergic airways disease through age-dependent differences in immunopathology', Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 125 617-625 (2010) [C1]