Carolyn Nielsen

My research focuses on understanding the cellular drivers of durable humoral immunity with a particular interest in the impact of vaccine platform or dosing schedule on B cell responses. This work has recently included flow cytometry, systems serology, and single cell RNA-sequencing approaches funded by a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship. At present, I am exploring strategies to integrate lymphoid tissue analyses into vaccine clinical studies, aiming to directly measure induction of vaccine-specific long-lived plasma cells in germinal centres and subsequent seeding in the bone marrow.

Prior to joining the University of Oxford, I obtained my ScM in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, before completing my PhD with Eleanor Riley at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. My PhD thesis work, supported by an MRC Vaccine Research studentship, focused on the impact of human cytomegalovirus infection on natural killer cell responses to vaccines.

My overarching long-term interest is in understanding the factors that contribute to heterogeneity in vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy, in order to guide vaccine development and optimisation.