Ultan Power

Professor

Phone+44 (0)28 9097 2285
Emailu.power@qub.ac.uk

Room 04.037 - Medical Biology Centre
United Kingdom

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Professor Power is open to PhD applications from candidates with a basic or clinical background. His fields of interest include: - virus/host interactions, with particular interest in respiratory viruses, such as RSV - virus vaccine vectors - primary airway epithelium cultures, in particular well-differentiated air-liquid interface cultures

Research output per year

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Personal profile

Research Statement

Human respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia in infants worldwide and also causes considerable morbidity and mortality in the elderly and immunecompromised individuals. Re-infections are common throughout life. Despite more than 50 years of research there are no vaccines or specific therapeutics against RSV. Importantly, the mechanisms by which RSV causes disease in humans remain poorly understood.

The Power group has developed models of RSV infection based on well-differentiated primary paediatric airway epithelial cell cultures (WD-PAEC), the primary targets of RSV infection in vivo. These cultures are derived from both bronchial and nasal brushes of airway epithelium in ethically approved protocols. Our RSV/WD-PAEC model derived from bronchial epithelium demonstrated remarkable similarities to hallmarks of RSV infection in infant lungs, both at the cellular and molecular levels. This research indicated that our model provides an authentic surrogate for RSV infection of lower airway epithelium in vivo. Similarly, our RSV/WD-PAEC model derived from nasal epithelium provided the means to comprehensively study RSV infection in authentic paediatric upper respiratory tract epithelium tissue. Our exploitation of these models has provided several novel insights into the consequences of RSV infection of paediatric airway epithelial cells that are the basis of ongoing research. In particular, using nasal-derived WD-PAECs from cohorts of infants with defined histories of severe and mild RSV disease, respectively, we have generated data identifying potential gene biomarkers of severe RSV disease in infants and are currently validating them.

We are confident that these models will provide insights into RSV pathogenesis in humans that ultimately lead to successful RSV vaccines and/or therapeutics. Be extension, we expect that they will also provide the basis for authentic pre-clinical models to test novel anti-RSV therapeutics.

Although our models are based on RSV infections, these cultures will be undoubtedly adaptable to studying the molecular pathogenesis of other important respiratory viruses, such as influenza virus and human parainfluenza viruses. Indeed, by way of comparison with RSV, we have extensively characterised the consequences of WD-PAEC infection with Sendai virus, a murine parainfluenza virus type 1 (mPIV1) that is considered non-pathogenic in humans. Sendai virus is of interest to us and others as a live attenuated viral vaccine vector for RSV antigens. As such, studying its interaction with WD-PAECs provided novel insights into the cytopathogenesis of Sendai virus in paediatric airway epithelial cells.

This research programme is the result of highly productive collaboration with Prof. Mike Shields and members of the Respiratory Research Cluster at QUB. It has attracted substantial peer-reviewed research funding from local and national funding agencies, as well as substantial research investment from international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

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Projects

1 Finished
1 Active

R1668CEM: Development of Novel RSV Pre-Fusion Protein Recombinant Bovine Vaccine

Power, U.

09/09/2016 → …

Project: Research

R7818CII: Prophylactic and therapeutic potential of anti-RSV nanobodies

Power, U. & Shields, M.

01/08/2012 → 31/07/2016

Project: Research

Research Output

67 Article
4 Chapter
4 Paper
1 Review article

Comparative primary paediatric nasal epithelial cell culture differentiation and RSV-induced cytopathogenesis following culture in two commercial media.

Broadbent, L., Manzoor, S., Zarcone, M. C., Barabas, J., Shields, M., Saglani, S., Lloyde, C. M., Bush, A., Custovic, A., Ghazal, P., Gore, M., Marsland, B., Roberts, G., Schwarze, J., Turner, S. & Power, U., 06 Mar 2020, (Accepted) In : PLoS One.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Comparative therapeutic potential of ALX-0171 and palivizumab against RSV clinical isolate 1 infection of well-differentiated primary pediatric bronchial epithelial cell cultures

Broadbent, L., Guo Parke, H., Ferguson, L., Millar, A., Shields, M., Detalle, L. & Power, U., 27 Jan 2020, In : Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 64, 2, 10 p., e02034-19.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

The secretome profiling of a pediatric airway epithelium infected with hRSV identified aberrant apical/basolateral trafficking and novel immune modulating (CXCL6, CXCL16, CSF3) and antiviral (CEACAM1) proteins.

Touzelet, O., Broadbent, L., Armstrong, S. D., Waleed, A., Cloutman-Green, E., Power, U. & Hiscox, J. A., 19 Feb 2020, (Accepted).

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper

Airway Epithelial Derived Cytokines and Chemokines and Their Role in the Pathogenesis of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection.

Glaser, L., Coulter, P., Shields, M., Touzelet, O., Power, U. & Broadbent, L., 17 Jul 2019, (Accepted) In : Pathogens.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article

Airway surface liquid has innate antiviral activity that is reduced in cystic fibrosis

Berkebile, A. R., Bartlett, J. A., Alaiwa, M. A., Varga, S. M., Power, U. & McCray, P. B., 26 Jun 2019, In : American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article

Open Access

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130 Downloads (Pure)

Datasets

Characterisation of morphological differences in well-differentiated nasal epithelial cell cultures

Groves, H. (Creator), Guo Parke, H. (Creator), Broadbent, L. (Creator), Shields, M. (Creator), Power, U. (Creator), Queen's University Belfast, 25 Oct 2018

DOI: 10.17034/d34301e3-20ae-4d26-a7d0-a2a5bf0b5371

Dataset

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