Short biography
Margarita Bofill (1949-2014) was trained as a biologist at the University of Barcelona. In 1971, she joined the Immunology Department at the Hospital of Santa Creu i Sant Pau, where she worked as a consultant from 1974 to 1979. In 1980 she joined the Royal Free Hospital (London) where she did her PhD in Immunology. Her first contribution in the field was the description of immune cells and their organization in lymphoid organs, and one of her reagents (CD25) is still routinely used worldwide in Kidney transplantation. Simultaneously, a new disease, AIDS, was born. We were the first to realize the impact that this disease had in the destruction of the CD4 T cells followed by the disorganization of lymphoid tissues. In 1996 she was accepted as a member of the Royal College of Pathologists. She became an ICREA Research Professor in 2002. Her contribution to science is reflected by an H-index of 39.
Research interests
A successful vaccine stimulates the generation of protective immune T cells. These cells are born in the thymus and emigrate to the rest of the body. Vaccines to HIV have been so far ineffective, because HIV destroys these immune T-cells. We have performed a vaccine trial that shows that the regeneration of the thymus, through the administration of Growth Hormone, can restore the immunity to HIV in adult HIV patients. Our next aim is to find other drugs that have a similar effect on the thymus but are easier to administer.
The IFN-gamma is crutial for the control of intracellular parasites and is produced by activated T cells and NK cells, but the production of IFN gamma by macrophages has been totally ignored. We have shown that macrophages can produce IFN in the presence of IL-12 and IL-18. Furthermore these cells are not susceptible to HIV infection.
We are now focussing on the mechanisms by which IL-12 and IL-18 block HIV infection. Key words
HIV, Vaccines, IL-12 and IL-18