Steven Bolton

Meet the Member: Newcastle University

Steven Bolton is a PhD student in the Immunity and Inflammation theme at Newcastle University. His research interests focus mainly on regulatory T Cell differentiation and functionality, having achieved an M.Sci focusing on how PD1 signalling alters T Cells.

After graduating in 2019 Steve took “6 months out” which unfortunately, was overtaken by a global pandemic that made that break a little longer! During the pandemic, Steve worked in a fabulous NHS lighthouse laboratory which performed a staggering 8 million PCR COVID tests. At the end of mass testing, he then moved to White City in London, and gained further Treg biology experience in the novel use of autologous CAR-Tregs in the Translational team at Quell Therapeutics, who are carrying out the Liberate clinical trial.

Steve has since returned to Newcastle working in the E-CLAD UK trial team, where lung transplant recipients afflicted with Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction (CLAD) undergo ECP treatments to ascertain if there will be a positive impact from ECP in solid organ transplant patients, as there is in HSCT recipients. He will be mechanistically investigating blood samples taken at numerous timepoints throughout the course of treatment, and aiming to probe the effects of ECP on immune cell populations, transcriptomic changes and functional changes in these cells; through cytokine profiling, and by looking at the signals that may influence all of this through extracellular vesicles involved in intercellular communication networks.

With such a comprehensive examination of the immunological effects of ECP, Steve hopes to have exciting news to share in the future, which will of course be shared with UKPS!