Professor Mike Dustin

Kennedy Trust Professor of Molecular Immunology

Governing Body Fellow, Research Fellow at Harris-Manchester College (2014-2022)

Academic background and previous positions

Prof. Dustin has a B.A. in Biology from Boston University (1984) and a Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard University (1990).  His interests are cell biology and immunology.  His lab at Washington University led pioneering work on the dynamics of the immunological synapse in the 1990’s. Work at NYU School of medicine in the 2000’s explored in vivo dynamics of the immune response using two-photon laser scanning microscopy and continued work on the dynamics of the immunological synapse formation using supported lipid bilayers. He moved his lab to the University of Oxford in 2013 supported by a Principal Research Fellowship from Wellcome. He is currently the Kennedy Trust Professor of Molecular Immunology and a Governing Body Fellow at Brasenose College. Recent work, also generously supported by the ERC, has explored the nanoscale organization of the immunological synapse leading to a basic description of the supramolecular assemblies that make up the mature immunological synapse. Surprising findings included synaptic ectosomes involved in T cell help and supramolecular attack particles that mediate cytotoxicity- both of which are found in the centre of the immunological synapse.  Prof Dustin received a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering in 2000 and is an elected member of EMBO and the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

Graduate teaching areas Cell Biology and Immunology

Research interests Cell-cell communication in the immune system, immunological synapses, extracellular particles, cell migration.

Publications Cespedes PF, Jainarayanan A, Fernandez-Messina L, Valvo S, Saliba DG, Kurz E, Kvalvaag A, Chen L, Ganskow C, Colin-York H, Fritzsche M, Peng Y, Dong T, Johnson E, Siller-Farfan JA, Dushek O, Sezgin E, Peacock B, Law A, Aubert D, Engledow S, Attar M, Hester S, Fischer R, Sanchez-Madrid F, Dustin ML. T-cell trans-synaptic vesicles are distinct and carry greater effector content than constitutive extracellular vesicles. Nat Commun. 2022;13(1):3460.

Demetriou P, Abu-Shah E, Valvo S, McCuaig S, Mayya V, Kvalvaag A, Starkey T, Korobchevskaya K, Lee LYW, Friedrich M, Mann E, Kutuzov MA, Morotti M, Wietek N, Rada H, Yusuf S, Afrose J, Siokis A, Oxford IBDCI, Meyer-Hermann M, Ahmed AA, Depoil D, Dustin ML. A dynamic CD2-rich compartment at the outer edge of the immunological synapse boosts and integrates signals. Nat Immunol. 2020;21(10):1232-43.

Balint S, Muller S, Fischer R, Kessler BM, Harkiolaki M, Valitutti S, Dustin ML. Supramolecular attack particles are autonomous killing entities released from cytotoxic T cells. Science. 2020;368(6493):897-901.

Choudhuri K, Llodra J, Roth EW, Tsai J, Gordo S, Wucherpfennig KW, Kam LC, Stokes DL, Dustin ML. Polarized release of T-cell-receptor-enriched microvesicles at the immunological synapse. Nature. 2014;507(7490):118-23. Epub 2014/02/04. doi: 10.1038/nature12951. PubMed PMID: 24487619; PMCID: PMC3949170.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-kzPVdfTCM

michael.dustin@kennedy.ox.ac.uk https://www.kennedy.ox.ac.uk/research/immunological-synapse https://www.kennedy.ox.ac.uk/team/michael-dustin