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Staff Profile

Dr Shoba Amarnath

Reader in Immune Regulation

  • Telephone: 01912085074
  • Personal Website: https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/amarnath/
  • Address: Biosciences Institute
    Cell Signalling
    NUCancer
    Room M4.179
    4th floor William Leech Building
    The Medical School
    Framlington Place
    Newcastle Upon Tyne
    NE2 4HH

    Tel: +44 (0) 1912088257
Background

Background

I obtained a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from University of Madras, Chennai, India. I then moved to the University of Hull to pursue a M.Sc in Biotechnology and Molecular Biology. I stayed on in Hull on an Overseas Research Scholarship (ORS) award to continue my PhD. I joined Dr.Daniel H. Fowler's laboratory at the Experimental Transplantation Immunology Branch, NCI, NIH for post-doctoral research. During my time at the NIH, the main focus of my research has been understanding the basic biology of regulatory T cells and the various signalling networks that maintain regulatory T cell function. My research at NIH has led to two clinical trials, patents, FOCIS awards etc. 


At Newcastle University, I have forged multiple collaborations, which has resulted in numerous fundamental discoveries in immunology.

For recent publications please visit:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=amarnath shoba


Area of expertise

T cell Immunobiology, co-receptor biology, Immunotherapy, T cell engineering, Immune Tolerance, ILCs


Active collaborators 

Prof. John Isaacs, Newcastle University

Prof. Nick Reynolds, Newcastle University

Prof. Derek Mann, Newcastle University

Prof. Helen Reeves, Newcastle University

Prof. Ruth Plummer, Newcastle University

Prof. Penny Lovat, Newcastle University

Prof. Avan Sayer, Newcastle University

Dr. Antoneta Granic, Newcastle University

Prof. Marloes Peeters, University of Manchester

Dr. James Dawson, Newcastle University

Dr. Giuseppe Sciume, LaSapienza University, Rome

Dr. Arian Laurence, UCLH

Dr. Han-Yu Shih, NIH


Funding (Active)

LeoFoundation Serendipity Award

BRC/NIHR (Skin/oral theme)

Lister Prize

Barbour PhD studentship

BSF PhD stuendtship


Patent

Use of PDL1 expressing cells to convert T cells into regulatory T cells. Patent number:9644179; Inventors:Dr. James L.Riley, Dr. Daniel H. Fowler and Dr. Shoba Amarnath.


Membership

British Society of Immunology

European Society of Dermatological Research

British Society of Investigative Dermatology


Manuscript/Grant Peer Review

I review for several journals and sit on several grant panels both for national and international funders.



For any lab related resources/protocols please visit our laboratory website at

https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/amarnath



Research


The research vision of my laboratory is to decipher the intricate immunological networks that regulate immune tolerance in health and disease. Specifically, we aim to identify proteins that control Treg and ILC function in inflammation and cancer. Our research suggests that coreceptors function in a more collective regulatory manner than previously defined and current work in the laboratory is focussed on identifying the landscape of checkpoint receptors that are controlled by PD-1. Developing a landscape approach to checkpoint receptors will not only elucidate immune tolerance mechanisms but also identify key checkpoints that could be valuable in treating cancer. We have found that a family of coreceptors belonging to the B7 family control the expression of another family of coreceptors belonging to the TNFR family.


Our science requires skilled tools currently available within my lab: including animal models of cancer, autoimmunity, alloimmunity and humanised murine models of inflammation, along with protein and protease biochemistry methods. These tools have already proved their value and has helped identify a new protease in Tregs known as asparaginyl endopeptidase (AEP; lgmn) that can regulate Tregs (Stathopoulou et al, Immunity, 2018) in cancer.


Our work on cutaneous inflammation has identified the expression of a well know T cell co-receptor called programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) on a new type of immune cell called Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILC-2s). This work was recently published by us (Taylor et al, J.Exp.Med, 2017). 


We have demonstrated that a previously undefined population of Innate Lymphoid Cells with a type 1 signature is controlled by PD-1 within the melanoma and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma microenvironment (Lim et al, PNAS, 2023).


Recent efforts in the laboratory has included deep phenotyping of Regulatory T cells in Psoriatic Arthritis (McTaggart et al, JBC, 2025), in the very old (McTaggart et al, Aging Cell, 2025) using scRNA-seq analysis. Extending on the work published in JBC, we are also studying the role of Tregs in tissue repair namely preventing bone loss in Psoriatic arthritis.


We also found that both in mice and humans, the expression of TNFR family of coreceptors are controlled by PD-1 (Lim et al, Nat. Immunol., 2025).


Recent work includes deciphering the role of PD-1 in driving TNFR co-receptors in Dendritic Cells, alongside creating a PD-1 expression atlas on the myeloid compartment of the immune system. These studies provide an insight into the function of PD-1 in controlling barrier immunity, infection control (Candida) and inflammation such as Psoriasis.



Teaching

I provide pastoral support to a number of UG tutees, and also participate in teaching at the UG, M.Res and Graduate level students.

I also lecture on Lymphocytes within the tumour microenvironment which is part of the curriculum for the M.Res Cell Signaling Module. I also teach on the Aging immune system within the M.Res Aging Module.




Publications