Max Rady College of Medicine

Department of Immunology

Ever have a nasty cold in November or a sneezing fit in May and wish you knew what was happening? Did you know that many of the most prevalent and persistent diseases, ranging from asthma to arthritis, are caused by your immune system acting out of whack? If you’re considering your options for an interesting and challenging career in the biological sciences, check us out!

About the department

Founded in 1969, the Department of Immunology was the first of its kind in Canada. Originally known as the MRC Group for Allergy Research, Dr. Alec Sehon along with various others, provided a strong core of research activity and a lasting legacy. Today the department is known and respected internationally as a centre for diverse immunology research and teaching. Our focus has been on the establishment of a multidisciplinary program in immunology, encompassing basic and clinical biomedical scientists with expertise in a broad range of immunological topics.

From our strong research faculty to our award-winning students, the department of Immunology is a vibrant and diverse place to study. Throughout the year, the department hosts a number of activities designed to provide opportunities for students to develop essential professional skills, such as oral and written scientific communications, grant-writing, mentorship, job searches, and many more. We also host a weekly seminar series which brings in an excellent array of local, national and international speakers to provide students with exposure to a wide range of research topics and foster multi-disciplinary thinking.

What we offer

Immunology offers graduate courses at the master’s and PhD level. Our programs have a strong emphasis on laboratory research and developing oral communication and presentation skills—providing suitable experience for careers in biomedical science research in the context of industry, government or academic laboratories.

Current student resources

The Graduate Student Guide contains a wealth of information and has general guidelines for all department members. To request an electronic copy, email angela.peloquin@umanitoba.ca.

Awards and scholarships

The University of Manitoba issues more than $17 million to students each year in the form of scholarships and bursaries. Find out how you can access funding so you can focus on your studies.

The Department of Immunology offers graduate students several opportunities to be recognized for their academic and research accomplishments.

Annual internal scholarships

Mindel and Tom Olenick Research Award in Immunology (Entrance Scholarship)

This $5,000 scholarship is awarded annually to two full-time students enrolled in their first year of studies in the Faculty of Graduate Studies, in a program delivered by the Department of Immunology who has achieved high academic standing and has proposed to conduct research in any area of Immunology.

Mindel and Tom Olenick Research Award in Immunology

This award is given annually on the basis of scientific merit for immunology research conducted in Manitoba by a graduate student (master’s or PhD) or post-doctoral fellow affiliated with the University of Manitoba.

Department of Immunology and Ade & Co. Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Seminars

This awarded is given annually on the basis of scientific merit for immunology research conducted at the University of Manitoba by a graduate student (master’s or PhD) in Immunology.

Department of Immunology Award for Best Journal Club Presentation

University of Manitoba Graduate Fellowship (UMGF)

University Graduate Fellowships (UMGF) are offered to full-time master’s and PhD students to recognize and support academic excellence. The fellowships are offered to students who have demonstrated superior intellectual ability and academic accomplishment.

External funding

External funding is also available through:

Research Manitoba
Mitacs
Tri-Council awards (federal funding)

Explore Max Rady College of Medicine awards

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Undergraduate Research Awards

Each year, the University of Manitoba provides a multitude of unique learning opportunities through the undergraduate research awards. This program allows undergraduate students to interact with the best minds and research leaders in their fields. This experience opens them up to new possibilities for a research career in either government, academic or industry sectors.

Department research

The Department of Immunology’s research activities are based in a modern open-concept lab that includes several large cell culture suites, complete molecular biology capabilities, flow cytometry and confocal microscopy.

Allergy and asthma research

Our faculty and research trainees are investigating fundamental immune regulatory mechanisms contributing to allergy and asthma and applying multi-omic approaches to understand lung and airway inflammation. Several projects are investigating the effects of early life exposures to multiple factors such as specific microbes or breast feeding and others are determining the impact of vaping, smoking and air pollution.

Cancer research

Our faculty and research trainees are investigating the role of the immune system in multiple types of cancers including leukemia, lymphoma, head and neck cancer and breast cancer. Researchers are also mapping cellular signal transduction pathways contributing to malignant transformation or immune dysfunction and investigating anti-cancer therapies targeting signaling pathways.

Chronic inflammatory diseases research

Our faculty and research trainees are addressing how the immune system can become a destructive force leading to autoimmunity or other chronic inflammatory diseases. Researchers are addressing diseases affecting various body systems such as inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or neurodegenerative disease.

Infectious diseases research

Our faculty and research trainees are investigating how the immune system fights a range of infectious diseases including human viral infections such as HIV and Sars-Cov2, parasitic diseases, bacterial infections or a number of animal diseases of economic importance. Research goals include development of diagnostics, immunotherapeutic strategies or vaccines to improve disease management.

Immune cell biology and biotechnology research

Our faculty and research trainees are applying cutting-edge technologies such as live cell fluorescence imaging and tracking, single cell transcriptomics, custom microfluidic devices and proteomics to discover new molecular and cellular mechanisms controlling the function of our immune system. Researchers are shedding light on how different immune cell types are called into action or shut down at the appropriate time and place within the body, to ensure that immune responses protect us without damaging the body.

Transplantation and cell therapy research

Our faculty and research trainees are investigating the interaction of the immune system with transplanted organs or cells. Researchers are implementing improved donor matching with recipients needing kidney transplants based on sophisticated analyses of immune responses and are developing cell-based therapies for burn victims and cancer patients.

Allergy and asthma research
Cancer research
Chronic inflammatory diseases research
Infectious diseases research
- Janilyn Arsenio
- Shawn Babiuk
- Kelly MacDonald
- Asher Mendelson
- Thomas Murooka
- Deanna Santer
- Jude Uzonna
- Xi Yang
Immune cell biology and biotechnology research
Transplantation and cell therapy research
- Qindong Guan
- Peter Nickerson
- Afshin Raouf

Heather Armstrong

Dr. Armstrong’s research has helped identify how the hallmark dysbiosis in inflammatory bowel diseases leads to dysregulated fibre fermentation, increased interactions of unfermented fibres with immune cell receptors, and reduced beneficial fermentation byproducts (e.g., SCFAs), resulting in worsened inflammation in select patients. Her teams work aims to understand the mechanisms behind diet-associated inflammation in inflammatory diseases, mediated by gut microbes. This is particularly critical as the sustained inflammation in the gut of IBD patients is directly associated with increased risk of cancer, and mortality.

View Heather Armstrong's full profile.

Janilyn Arsenio

Janilyn Arsenio
Dr. Arsenio’s lab studies CD8 T cell fate diversity during immunity at the single-cell level. They are interested in how T cells become different functional regulators of the immune response to viral infections, as well as in chronic inflammation (e.g. autoimmunity, cancer), and vaccination.

View Janilyn Arsenio's full profile.

Meghan Azad

Dr. Azad studies the developmental origins of health and diseases (DOHaD), focusing on the role of prenatal nutrition, breastfeeding and human milk composition. Her research program aims to clarify the influence of breastfeeding on infant health and development, identify the bioactive components of human milk that underlie these associations, and determine how maternal characteristics including prenatal nutrition influence breastfeeding, milk composition and infant health.

View Meghan Azad's full profile.

Jean-Eric Ghia

Dr. Ghia’s research program aims to elucidate the role of chromogranin-derived peptides, the autonomic nervous system, and central disorders during gastrointestinal inflammation development and to elucidate the precise mechanisms involved. This may lead to identifying new specific agents that will open new therapeutic avenues for treating ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.

View Jean-Eric Ghia's full profile

Sam Kung

Natural Killer (NK) cells are bone marrow derived cells that regulate innate immunity against viral infections and cancers. NK cells can be activated by receptor recognition of target cells, cytokines or dendritic cells in the microenvironments. My research program aims at molecular understanding of how factors found in the microenvironments regulate NK-cell development, migrations, cytotoxic and/or cytokine-production functions. We are also interested in translating our novel basic findings into NK-based immunotherapy in Head and Neck, and breast cancer models.

View Sam Kung's full profile.

Aaron Marshall

Dr. Marshall’s research group is working to decode the intracellular signals that control the activities of immune cells during both healthy immune responses and in various disease states such as Lupus or Leukemia. His laboratory applies advanced molecular and cell biology approaches to understand the signaling networks operating in immune cells, with a focus on antibody-producing cells called B lymphocytes.

View Aaron Marshall's full profile.

Neeloffer Mookherjee

Dr. Mookherjee’s research program focuses on the regulation of inflammation in chronic diseases such as arthritis and asthma. She also studies aspects of how environmental exposures such as air pollution impact chronic disease. As the current Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Chair in Sex and Gender Science in Respiratory Health, she is integrating the fundamentals of sex- and gender-based analyses in her work. Drug discovery projects in her group aim to develop small peptide-based immunomodulatory therapies for chronic disease such as severe asthma.

View Neeloffer Mookherjee's full profile.

Thomas Murooka

Dr. Murooka’s lab uses a microscopy-based approach to understand how cell-to-cell communicative behavior between immune cells is regulated within healthy tissues, and how these behaviors are altered during infections in vivo. The goal is to describe the spatiotemporal dynamics of the immune system to inform new strategies to prevent or better eliminate infectious diseases.

View Thomas Murooka's full profile.

Liam O'Neil

Liam O'Neil's aim is to better understand the pre-clinical phase of rheumatoid arthritis, interface immunology and proteomics to elucidate mechanisms of rheumatoid arthritis pathogenesis and ultimately improve patient outcomes.

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Deanna Santer

Dr. Santer's research program focuses on IFN biology and how type I versus type III IFNs regulate human immune cell responses against viruses, during chronic inflammation, or after vaccination. This includes type III IFN treatment of COVID-19 patients with our collaborators at the University of Alberta and University Health Network.

View Deanna Santer's full profile.

Abdelilah Soussi Gounni

Dr. Soussi Gounni’s research interests include the mechanisms of airways diseases and pathways regulating structural and inflammatory cell recruitment, activation and survival. His lab studies the function, expression and regulation of a neuronal chemo-repellent protein, Sema3E, in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

View Abdelilah Soussi Gounni's full profile.

Afshin Raouf

Dr. Raouf’s research is focused on understanding the role of tissue environment and the tissue resident immune cells in health and in disease. He focuses on two major and fundamental projects: Using patient samples are used to recreate the tumor microenvironment to understand why some breast tumors do respond to therapy and the reasons behind inability of immune cells to detect and eliminate cancer cells. In a separate project, human cells are used to create wound healing models to examine the immune suppressive properties of mesenchymal stem cells and how they can be used to improve healing of the severe burns and other skin wounds.

View Afshin Raouf's full profile.

Jude Uzonna

Dr. Uzonna’s primary research program focuses on understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the induction, maintenance and loss of protective immunity against parasitic infections, particularly those caused by protozoa, with a view to exploiting the information gained from these studies for the development of effective vaccines and vaccination strategies against these infections. He is also interested in understanding the immunomodulatory mechanisms that regulate the pathophysiology of systemic inflammatory response syndromes, particularly those associated with sepsis and septic shock.

View Jude Uzonna's full profile.

Xi Yang

Dr. Yang's lab has three areas of focus: Studying hygiene hypothesis related to allergy and/or asthma, the protective immunity and immunopathology to chlamydial infection, and the role of SND1 in oncogenicity and tumor development, particularly its influence on antigen presentation and T cell activation.

View Xi Yang's full profile.

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Our facilities

Open-concept laboratory

Our open-concept laboratory accommodates up to eight principal investigators. The facility includes four large cell culture suites, complete molecular biology capabilities, flow cytometry and confocal microscopy, an immunophenotyping core facility and numerous additional instruments.

FACS analyzers

Our facility includes multiple FACS analyzers (eight to 16 parameter) and a high speed cell sorter within biosafety level 2 containment, managed by Dr. Christine Zhang.

View the flow cytometry website

Microscopy facilities

Our microscopy facilities include several digital fluorescence microscopes as well as a four laser Zeiss Cell Observer spinning disk confocal with FRAP, photoactivation and TIRF capabilities for high speed live cell imaging.

MesoScale Discovery platform

Our MesoScale Discovery platform provide multiplex analyses of biological fluids for measurement of numerous analytes with high accuracy over a wide dynamic range.

Our Immunophenotyping Service is as follows:

MesoScale Discovery Multi-Biomarker Assays
Multi-Array technology offers increased dynamic range, improved sensitivity, reduced sample and reagent requirements. ELISA conversion kits
MESO QuickPlex SQ 120 Instrument training and access
Assays run with user-provided samples

For service requests please contact Bill Stefura at bill.stefura@umanitoba.ca.

Fees

Academic:

Instrument access only: $50.00 per plate
Assay’s run with user-provided samples: $50/hour of technician time

Industry:

Instrument access only: $100.00 per plate
Assay’s run with user-provided samples: $100/hour of technician time

Community and partners

Faculty and staff

Our team

With primary and cross-appointed faculty, a comprehensive program of graduate and postdoctoral training, and strong links with immunologically based research groups, the Department of Immunology offers extensive professional opportunities for advancement.

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Contact us

Immunology
Max Rady College of Medicine
Apotex Centre
Room 471, 750 McDermot Avenue
University of Manitoba (Bannatyne campus)
Winnipeg, MB R3E 0T5 Canada

204-789-3509

204-789-3921

204-480-1347

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University of Manitoba