Jennifer Burchell

 

Jennifer Burchell has two passions in life – research and travel. Her PhD studies at the Institute have allowed her to combine both, and so far during her studies she has had the opportunity to visit India, Japan and New Zealand.

 

Jennifer’s first encounter with the Institute was in 2002 when she undertook her Honours degree in the Division of Clinical Sciences under the supervision of Dr Debra Turner and Professor Peter Sly.

 

During her Honours, Jennifer was able to give many presentations on her research project, which was looking at characterising the lung function and immunological responses to bacterial-induced lung inflammation in a mouse model. She was awarded the Young Investigator prize for her presentation at the Lung Research Meeting and was awarded a travel grant from the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand to attend their national conference in Adelaide.

At the end of 2002, Jennifer successfully completed her honours degree and was awarded an Asthma Foundation of Western Australia summer scholarship to continue her research her a further five months.

Then, the travel bug bit and Jennifer headed off to Europe for 18 months where she backpacked and worked her way around the continent. She jumped at the opportunity to work with Associate Professor Bart Lambrecht, in his well-respected laboratory in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

“My job involved setting up and teaching the workings of a specialized machine called FlexiVent to accurately measure lung function in small rodents.”

“I really enjoyed the experience of working in a different country and meeting researchers from Europe.”

Jennifer returned to Perth and began her PhD in January 2005. Her studies are funded by a scholarship from the Asthma Foundation of WA and Jennifer was awarded a Stan and Jean Perron Award as a top-up to her scholarship.

“My project will follow the way the body’s immune system responds to an exposure to an allergic substance leading to asthma, and will focus on a critical subset of lymphocytes known as CD4+ T cells.”

“To our knowledge, this is the first in vivo study to accurately document the events leading to allergic disease from the time of initial exposure to allergen through to the onset of clinical symptoms of asthma, which is very exciting.”

Jennifer’s PhD research will provide an improved level of understanding of the way allergic disease develops in the body and the factors in the environment that can affect this. It will also help to identify novel pathways to stop allergic disease developing after exposure to allergens, or to improve treatment strategies.

After completing her PhD, Jennifer hopes to again combine her two passions and head overseas to take up a post-doctoral position.