Mary Katharine Levinge Collins, Lady Hunt is a British Professor of

Immunology Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see there ...

. She served as Provost at the

Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology The is a private, interdisciplinary graduate school located in Onna, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The school offers a 5-year PhD program in Science. Over half of the faculty and students are recruited from outside Japan, and all education and r ...

in Japan. Formerly, Collins taught in the Division of Infection and Immunity at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, and was the head of the Division of Advanced Therapies at the

National Institute for Biological Standards and Control The National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) is a government agency that works in the field of biological standardisation and is part of the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). It ...

, and the Director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Molecular Virology. Her research group studies the use of viruses as vectors for introducing new

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

s into cells, which can be useful for experimental

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...

, for clinical applications such as

gene therapy Gene therapy is a medical field which focuses on the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect or the treatment of disease by repairing or reconstructing defective genetic material. The first attempt at modifying human DN ...

, and as

cancer vaccine A cancer vaccine is a vaccine that either treats existing cancer or prevents development of cancer. Vaccines that treat existing cancer are known as ''therapeutic'' cancer vaccines or tumor antigen vaccines. Some of the vaccines are "autologous", ...

Education

Collins was born in Reading, England and grew up in Cheltenham Spa, attending Cheltenham Ladies' College as a day girl. She won an entrance scholarship to

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. It was refounded ...

, where she studied Natural Sciences (Biochemistry). She did her

postgraduate Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate ( bachelor's) degree. The organization and stru ...

research work supervised by Enrique Rozengurt at the

Imperial Cancer Research Fund Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

for which she was awarded a PhD by the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

in 1983.

Career and research

After her PhD, she moved to a

postdoctoral fellowship A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

with

Avrion Mitchison (Nicholas) Avrion Mitchison (born 5 May 1928) is a British zoologist and immunologist. Biography Mitchison was born in 1928, the son of the Labour politician Dick Mitchison (Baron Mitchison of Carradale in the County of Argyll, who died 197 ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

studying the locations of

T cell receptor The T-cell receptor (TCR) is a protein complex found on the surface of T cells, or T lymphocytes, that is responsible for recognizing fragments of antigen as peptides bound to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. The binding b ...

gene clusters, and next worked with

Richard C. Mulligan Richard C. Mulligan, Ph.D., (born 1954) is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Harvard Gene Therapy Initiative. He is a Director of Enzon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Biogen Idec, Inc. Awards * 198 ...

at the

Whitehead Institute Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally indepen ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, where she developed

retroviral A retrovirus is a type of virus that inserts a DNA copy of its RNA genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell. Once inside the host cell's cytoplasm, the virus uses its own reverse transcriptas ...

vectors expressing

cytokine Cytokines are a broad and loose category of small proteins (~5–25 kDa) important in cell signaling. Cytokines are peptides and cannot cross the lipid bilayer of cells to enter the cytoplasm. Cytokines have been shown to be involved in autocrin ...

s and

cytokine receptor Cytokine receptors are receptors that bind to cytokines. In recent years, the cytokine receptors have come to demand the attention of more investigators than cytokines themselves, partly because of their remarkable characteristics, and partly be ...

s. Collins started her research group in 1987 at the Institute of Cancer Research in London and moved in 1997 to

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, where she has since held a variety of leadership positions. She served as the head of UCL Immunology & Molecular Pathology from 2000 to 2007, became Director of the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Molecular Virology in 2005, became Director of the UCL Division of Infection & Immunity in 2003, and served as the Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences between 2009 and 2014. She stepped down as dean to become the head of the Division of Advanced Therapies at the

. Collins was among the prominent UCL women scientists featured in a series of interviews published by the MRC in celebration of

International Women's Day International Women's Day (IWD) is a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 as a focal point in the women's rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against wom ...

in 2011 and was one of two UCL women to participate in a women in science event in collaboration with

Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design Central Saint Martins is a public tertiary art school in London, England. It is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. It offers full-time courses at foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and a variety of shor ...

in 2012. In December 2015, it was announced that Professor Collins would become Dean of Research at the Okinawa Institute of Technology. ''

Forbes Magazine ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also rep ...

'' speculated that she would supervise of $110m in Japanese government funding at the Institute. In October 2022, she returned to London to take up the post of Director of the Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London. Collins' research group studies the use of viruses, particularly

lentivirus ''Lentivirus'' is a genus of retroviruses that cause chronic and deadly diseases characterized by long incubation periods, in humans and other mammalian species. The genus includes the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS. Lent ...

es (the group to which the

human immunodeficiency virus The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause AIDS, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the ...

belongs), as vectors for delivering novel

s to cells and as platforms for the development of

vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...

s. Because lentiviruses like HIV specifically infect

immune cell White blood cells, also called leukocytes or leucocytes, are the cells of the immune system that are involved in protecting the body against both infectious disease and foreign invaders. All white blood cells are produced and derived from multi ...

s called

T-cell A T cell is a type of lymphocyte. T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response. T cells can be distinguished from other lymphocytes by the presence of a T-cell r ...

s, a

genetically engineered Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including t ...

inactivated version of the virus can be used to deliver

immunogenic Immunogenicity is the ability of a foreign substance, such as an antigen, to provoke an immune response in the body of a human or other animal. It may be wanted or unwanted: * Wanted immunogenicity typically relates to vaccines, where the injectio ...

proteins to T-cells to induce an immune response. This system has been studied successfully in

laboratory mice The laboratory mouse or lab mouse is a small mammal of the order Rodentia which is bred and used for scientific research or feeders for certain pets. Laboratory mice are usually of the species ''Mus musculus''. They are the most commonly used ...

Awards and honours

Collins was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci)in 1999. She won the

Suffrage Science award The Suffrage Science award is a prize for women in science, engineering and computing founded in 2011, on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS). There are three categories of awar ...

in 2011.

Personal

Collins married

Tim Hunt Sir Richard Timothy Hunt, (born 19 February 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular physiologist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for their discoveries of protein molec ...

in 1995, who was awarded the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

in 2001, and

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...

in 2006. They have two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Mary Living people Academics of University College London Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) British immunologists British women biologists Year of birth missing (living people) Wives of knights