Professor Maria Forlenza on comparing immune systems across species

I was born in Italy, where I studied a masters in molecular immunology, then I moved to the Netherlands for a PhD, followed by two post-doctoral positions. I became assistant professor and associate professor, and after that I moved to the Roslin Institute.

The focus of my research species changed during that time. In my masters, I worked on sea bass. From 2002 to 2010, I worked mostly on common carp, then added zebrafish. In 2012, I started working on chickens, and then in 2018, on pigs. 
I would love to work on immunity in amphibians, but it's a bit more difficult. 

If a molecule in a fish is found to be working in the same way in an amphibian, in a reptile, and in a bird and so on, then that that molecule must absolutely be important.

If something doesn't change for 400 million years of evolution, it's really crucial. It's the keystone in the middle of an arch. If you remove it, the whole castle collapses. To me, this is fascinating. 

I have three major research interests: evolution, vaccination and organoids.

I'm interested in the evolution of the immune system, as the fundamental part of my research, in fish, pigs, chicken, and other species.

Across species, viral infections trigger molecules known as interferons very fast and at high levels, and this is very different across vertebrate species. So, matching the interferon responses with the specific viruses that are affecting animals is one of the big comparisons we’re interested in.

I've been involved in generating vaccines, working on zebrafish, carp, and now tilapia. For example, I helped develop a DNA vaccine against spring viraemia carp virus. I will also work a lot on Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout.

I will be continuing to work on nucleic acid-based vaccines to make them safer and more effective. I'm also working on third and fourth generation vaccines, for example replicon-based vaccines, which have self-replicating RNA that allows for significant replication in cells, against tilapia lake virus.

I knew that Roslin was already doing well in the three Rs – reduction, replacement and refinement of animals in research – and I’ll be working on organoids and in vitro systems for animal studies, in particular intestinal organoids for fish. I already made a start and it looks very promising, so we may soon be able to culture carp, tilapia and hopefully also Atlantic salmon organoids.

I'm really happy to be at the Roslin Institute. I am settling in, setting up my group, and there's a lot to do.

When I prepared to set up my work here, the Institute managed to fund a small unit for investigating infections in zebrafish, tilapia and carp, to enable my work.

In addition, since joining a few months ago, I have had offers of collaborations that are beyond my expectations.

There are no walls between the research divisions here, and it’s very motivating to work in a diverse environment with many experts.

In the future I would like to be involved more in teaching. I love training students, and have been nominated for teaching awards many times.

I do find it rewarding to have PhD students that became successful themselves. The idea of contributing to their motivation and to their enthusiasm for science is very rewarding.  

In coming from the Netherlands, I thought I was coming from a relatively bureaucratic country, with lots of rules and paperwork and so on. But here, the amount of paperwork just surpassed any imagination. The risk assessments, the travel … but in the end, it's all solvable and nothing has been hindered because of this.

Bureaucracy is really the thing that shocked me the most. But I would say that the positive definitely outweighed this part. I just have to grind. 

There are so many black holes in our understanding of how specific animals such as chicken, fish and amphibians mount particular immune responses. They lack certain features that we know are very important in mammals, including humans, yet they still manage to fend protect themselves from many pathogens.

Also, it's maybe too ambitious, but I would to really like to write or rewrite a proper comparative immunology book, to organise everything that we know, and most importantly, point out where the gaps are, so that new and future generations know where to focus. That would be a big legacy. 

I became a biologist because I watched the TV series MacGyver - he could build anything, such as a bomb, from nothing. So as a kid, I was building stuff, always creating from nothing, using my hands.

If I hadn’t become a scientist, I would have been a carpenter. I really like to work with wood, and to build things. Molecular biology means that you need to use all the little building blocks of biology to build something - like in a vaccine, putting pieces together. That's already what I do for a job, so I'm pretty sure that there is a connection there.