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Leon Smyth Laboratory

Neuro-Immune Interactions

Welcome to the Leon Smyth Lab

We aim to understand the rules that govern communication between the brain and the immune system, how this relationship regulates brain physiology, and how it changes in brain injury and cancer.

We're part of the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, and a member of the Cancer, Neuroscience and Immunity Programs.

and the Department of Physiology.

Dr Leon Smyth

My global research connections, partners and funding can be viewed on my Monash Research Profile.

If you are a student interested in doing research in our lab, visit Supervisor Connect.

Click the links below to connect with me on ORCID and Google Scholar.

Our research

In the last decade we have found that the brain system is constantly communicating with the immune system, not in the brain itself but at its borders, especially in the 3-layered membrane that wrap around it – the meninges. Our lab uses cutting edge genetic tools, imaging approaches, -omics techniques, and disease models to understand the role of the meninges in health, brain cancer and brain injury.

  1. Immune checkpoints in the brain.
  2. How the stroma shapes meningeal immune responses.
  3. How meningeal immunity regulates physiology.

Lab members

We are committed to excellence in research.

Publications

View our chosen highlighted key publications.

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News

We want to share our research discoveries & successes with you.

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Join Our Lab

We're always interested in collaborating with bright and motivated researchers, clinicians and industry. Whether you want to research, study or partner with us to accelerate our discoveries, find out about the work we do.

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