Join us for our monthly virtual presentation facilitated by experts in their field.

May 21, 2026

12:00 - 1:00 pm (Eastern)

TOPIC: Immunophenotyping of CSF in human and canine neurological diseases
Presenters: Dr. Linda Wooldridge

This program has not been submitted for one (1) hour of continuing education credit in jurisdictions that recognize RACE approval.

Dogs naturally present with diseases of the brain and spinal cord such as meningo-encephalitis of unknown origin (MUO), in which severe inflammation occurs. Large veterinary centres diagnose ~30-40 cases of MUO per year, indicating that hundreds of dogs are affected throughout the UK every year but to date, this category of diseases has no effective cure. Affected dogs are presented to the neurologist with various problems including seizures, falls, reduced vision, loss of routine behaviour, stupor or coma, neck or back pain, amongst other signs. Currently, we have a poor understanding of the cause and triggers of the inflammation in MUO. Treatment is typically based on immune-modulation; with high dose corticosteroids alone or combined with a pyrimidine analogue (cytosine arabinoside) or other immunomodulatory drugs, leaving veterinarians treating affected dogs with various MUO with unspecific anti-inflammatory protocols that are not particularly effective. Current data indicate that a third of dogs die within the first 3 months despite immune-suppressive treatment and a further third who go into remission suffer relapses within the first 12 months. As such there is an urgent need for research to elucidate the pathogenesis of these diseases and effectiveness of current treatments. Interestingly MUO shares many similarities with some human conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) or neuro-sarcoidosis. In depth immuno-phenotyping has been applied to the study of human conditions such as MS and there is an opportunity to do the same in MUO (albeit limited by the availability of reagents). This talk will detail some of the work that we have previously done in context of MS, the preliminary data that we have enerated in the context of MUO and our plans for the application of immunophenotyping in the study of MUO.

Linda is a T-cell immunologist who leads the Clinical T-cell Lab, which is based in the Bristol Veterinary School, Faculty of Life and Health Sciences in the University of Bristol. Linda originally graduated as a veterinary surgeon from the University of Bristol in 1996. During the time that she worked as a veterinary surgeon, she developed an interest in T-cell immunology, which led her to complete a MSc in Human Immunity at the University of Liverpool followed by a DPhil in T-cell immunology at the University of Oxford. In 2006 Linda was awarded a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellowship and then in September 2013, she moved to the University of Bristol to take up a chair in Translational Immunology. Work in the Clinical T-cell Lab is focussed on understanding the role that T-cells play in health and diseases such as auto-immunity, cancer and viral infection, and includes translational projects aimed at the development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of diseases such as autoimmunity and cancer. The lab has a broad range of expertise including the in-depth analysis of T-cell cross reactivity, T-cell epitope identification and pMHCI tetramer technology.