KEYNOTE: Complement and immunoglobulin genes in rheumatic heart disease

Authors

  • Tom Parks

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21542/gcsp.2025.hvbte.par

Abstract

I will cover updates on the latest insights into host genetic susceptibility to rheumatic heart disease including highlights from ongoing unpublished work in my laboratory. This will include a description of how complement and immunoglobulin genes appear to be the key players and how genetic variation in these complex regions is likely to impact immune responses to the causative streptococci. Finally, I will summarise the implications of these insights for development of vaccines and novel therapeutics.

Author Biography

Tom Parks

I am an Honorary Consultant and Clinical Senior Lecturer in Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London. Building on my doctoral studies at the University of Oxford and clinical training at London’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases, I now lead a research group tackling several aspects of group A streptococcal disease. In addition to our core host genomic studies funded by the Wellcome Trust aimed at delineating underlying mechanisms of invasive and post-infective disease, we are also working on development of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets in rheumatic fever, and pushing for a better understanding of the epidemiology of these neglected diseases.

Published

2025-10-06

Issue

Vol. 2025 No. HVBTE (2025): Proceedings of the The 10th Heart Valve Biology and Tissue Engineering Meeting

Section

Rheumatic Heart Disease

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Tom Parks

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.