Take 10 with... Gergely Toldi

1.  Describe your research topic to us in 10 words or less.

Anything that influences the immune system of a baby.

2.  Now describe it in everyday terms!

Our immune system has two major roles. It needs to protect us from harmful bugs, and it needs to maintain tolerance to our own cells and harmless molecules from the environment. Like anything else in life, both of these dynamic, active processes require a lot of learning in infancy. We are yet to understand the finer details of this learning process, and how it influences our health in childhood and throughout the lifespan if something goes wrong.

3.  What are some of the day-to-day research activities you carry out?

I spend quite some time talking to patients about study participation and collecting samples, mostly blood. I also do some lab work, although this is now mostly done by my very capable students, and a lot of data analysis.

4.  What do you enjoy most about your research?

I enjoy combining my clinical skills and interests with my experimental and laboratory experience.

5.  Tell us something that has surprised or amused you in the course of your research.

There are so many unknown aspects and old assumptions about how a baby’s immune system works compared to adulthood. It is great to contribute to furthering our knowledge in this field. It always surprises me how well structured the immune system is, and how well equipped it comes right from birth to meet the immunological challenges in early life.

6.  How have you approached any challenges you’ve faced in your research

Since we work on very limited amounts of precious biological samples, often just a few drops of blood from a preterm baby, we always have to carefully consider how we use these samples to obtain the most information possible. This demand constantly forces us to test new methods and incorporate them into our work.

7.  What questions have emerged as a result?

This often raises the question whether we can identify any reliable immune markers to be able to better monitor infection and inflammation in babies from blood samples, or from less invasive biological samples, such as stool and urine. While no such marker is currently in use in clinical practice, it would be great to have a way of identifying babies who are at risk of developing infectious or inflammatory complications.

8.  What impact is your research having or what impact do you hope it will have?

We hope that our findings will contribute to developing new therapeutic options to treat immunological complications, such as inflammation, in term and preterm babies, ultimately improving their long-term outcomes and quality of life. We also hope to contribute to reducing the burden of allergies and autoimmune diseases in later stages of life by correcting immune dysfunction in infancy.

9.  If you collaborate across the University, or outside the University, who do you work with and how does it benefit your research?

Besides my lovely colleagues at the Liggins Institute, I have several collaborators from around the country and internationally. For example, I collaborate on immunological projects with Professor Clare Wall (Nutrition and Dietetics, UoA), Dr Kuang-Chih Hsiao (Paediatrics and Child Health, UoA), Dr Olivier Gasser (Malaghan Institute), and Dr Jo Kirman (University of Otago), Professors Claudia and Marcel Nold (Monash University, Australia). They all have different backgrounds and expertise, and it is a true privilege to be able to learn from them.

10.  What one piece of advice would you give your younger, less experienced research self?

Choose how you use your time in academia carefully. Besides knowledge and experience, time is your greatest asset. You need to balance being supportive of your colleagues and selective in what tasks you say yes to, and it is not always an easy balance.