Associate Professor Raymond Steptoe

Associate Professor Ray Steptoe
BSc(Hons) UWA, PhD UWA
Associate Group Leader and ARC Future Fellow

Email: r.steptoe@uq.edu.au
Telephone: +61 7 3443 6959

Biography
Associate Professor Ray Steptoe undertook undergraduate studies in Anatomy and Human Biology and postgraduate studies in Immunology at the University of Western Australia. After further research training at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute in Pittsburgh, USA, he returned to Australia to pursue research in autoimmune diabetes at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. In 2004, he moved to Brisbane to take up a Research Fellowship at the Diamantina Institute.

Associate Professor Steptoe is now a Senior Research Fellow in the Dendritic Cell Biology group and heads a team of researchers investigating how pathogenic immune responses can be turned off. Associate PRofessor Steptoe is currently a recipient of an NHMRC Career Development Award and an Australian Research Council Fellowship

Research Interests

Associate Professor Steptoe’s research interests are aimed at determining the cellular and molecular pathways that are important in determining the fate of T-cell activation. In particular, studies are directed at understanding how to terminate pathogenic T cell responses with the goal of developing new therapeutic approaches to prevent or treat autoimmune diseases.

Research Projects

Cellular and molecular pathways of T-cell tolerance
Inactivation of memory T-cell responses
Prevention and reversal of autoimmune diabetes
Blockade of established allergic T-cell responses
Novel methods of gene delivery for tolerance

10 Recent Publications

Kenna TJ, Waldie T, McNally A. Thomson M, Yagita H, Thomas R, Steptoe RJ. Targeting antigen to diverse APC types inactivates memory CD8+ T cells without eliciting destructive effector function. J Immunol. 184:598-606, 2010.
Isomura I, Palmer S, Grumont RJ, Bunting K, Hoyne G, Wilkinson N, Banerjee A, Proietto A, Gugasyan Raffi, Li Wu, McNally A, Steptoe RJ, Thomas R, M. Shannon F, Gerondakis S. c-Rel is required for the development of thymic Foxp3+ CD4 regulatory T cells. J Exp Med. 206:3001-3014, 2009.
Doan T, McNally A, Thomas R, Steptoe RJ. Steady-state peripheral dendritic cells continuously inactivate T cells that escape thymic negative selection. Immunol Cell Biol. 87:615-622, 2009.
Capini C, Jaturanpinyo M, Chang H-I, Mutalik S, McNally A, Street S, Steptoe R, O’Sullivan B, Davies N, Thomas R. Antigen-specific suppression of inflammatory arthritis using liposomes. J Immunol. 182:3556-3565, 2009.
Kenna TJ, Thomas R, Steptoe RJ. Steady-state dendritic cells expressing cognate antigen terminate memory CD8+ T-cell responses. Blood. 111:2091-2100, 2008.
Proietto AI, van Dommelen S, Zhou P, D’Amico A, Steptoe RJ, Naik SH, Lahoud MH, Liu Y, Zheng P, Shortman K, Wu L. Dendritic cells in the thymus contribute to T regulatory cell induction. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA. 105:19869-19874, 2008.
Steptoe RJ, Ritchie JR, Wilson NS, Villadangos JA, Lew AM, Harrison LC. Cognate CD4+ help elicited by resting DC does not impair tolerance induction in CD8+ T-cells. J Immunol. 178: 2094-2103, 2007.
Wilson NS, Behrens GMN, Lundie RJ, Smith CM, Waithman J, Young L, Forehan SP, Mount A, Steptoe RJ, Shortman KD, de Koning-Ward T, Belz GT, Carbone FR, Crabb BS, Heath WR, Villadangos JA. Systemic activation of dendritic cells by TLR ligands or malaria infection impairs cross-presentation and anti-viral immunity. Nat Immunol. 7:165-172, 2006.
O'Sullivan BJ, Thomas HE, Pai S, Santamaria P, Iwakura Y, Steptoe RJ, Kay TWH, Thomas R. IL-1beta breaks tolerance through expansion of CD25+ effector T cells. J Immunol. 176:7278-7287, 2006.
Narendran P, Neale AM, Lee BH, Ngui K, Steptoe RJ, Morahan G, Madsen O, Dromey JA, Jensen KP, and Harrison LC. Proinsulin encoded by an RNA splice variant in human blood myeloid cells. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA. 103:16430-16435, 2006.

Lab Members