Roland Ruscher

Dr. Roland Ruscher obtained a German Diploma (~MSc) from University of Cologne and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Germany, and a PhD in 2014 in the field of immunology from University of Queensland, Translational Research Institute in Australia. He then joined Prof. Kristin Hogquist’s group at the University of Minnesota (UMN) in the USA as a Postdoctoral Fellow, where he studied the development and ontogeny of specific immune cells in the gut, named intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL). In July 2018 Dr. Ruscher returned to Australia and accepted a position sponsored by the Queensland based biotech company Paragen Bio. In 2020, he became a Research Fellow in Prof. Alex Loukas' group at James Cook University.

Dr. Ruscher's primary interests encompass intestinal and T cell immunology. The immune system and microbial community of the gut have an enormous influence on overall health, yet there are still huge knowledge gaps waiting to be explored. Dr. Ruscher strives to advance our understanding of the gut immune system, and its effects on allergies, and inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

His major scientific achievements include the discovery of a novel precursor cell to a subset of intestinal IEL (Ruscher et al., Nature Immunology 2017), and characterisation of their establishment in the gut in early life (Ruscher et al., Journal of Experimental Medicine 2020). Dr. Ruscher has also been crucially involved in defining developmental pathways of regulatory T cells (Owen et al., Nature Immunology, 2019).

Dr. Ruscher's current research focus comprises immune responses to parasitic helminths. These worms were shaped by millions of years of co-evolution with their mammalian hosts, and efficiently reduce host inflammatory responses in order to avoid expulsion. Dr. Ruscher studies such anti-inflammatory properties to harness them for the development of therapeutics. He is particularly interested in T cell responses to helminths, and how immunity at mucosal surfaces is modulated by molecules secreted by helminths.

At this early career stage, Dr. Ruscher has won multiple awards and prizes for his research (see ‘Honours’ section), gave a number of invited presentations and seminars, is currently supervising 4 PhD, MSc and Honours students, and is holding Chief Investigator (CI) positions on a NHMRC Ideas Grant and a NHMRC Development Grant, respectively (see 'Current Funding').