Overview
Background
Dr. Sabrina Sofia Burgener is Deputy Lab Head of the Disease Modelling Team of the Inflammasome Laboratory and Senior Research Fellow in Immunology at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at The University of Queensland.
As Deputy Lab Head of the Inflammasome Group at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), Dr. Burgener is an innate immunologist with over 12 years of cross-functional expertise in immunology, disease modelling and molecular biology. My research program focuses on a holistic understanding of inflammasome signalling in pre-clinical disease models to harness the development of new diagnostics and anti-inflammatory therapeutics.
After obtaining her professional training as a Veterinary Technician, they completed their PhD in Immunology under supervision of A/Prof. Benarafa at the University of Bern, Switzerland in 2017.
For their work on the cytoprotective role of Serpinb1 and Serpinb6 in neutrophils, they received several international awards such as the Society of Leukocyte Biology Presidential Award in 2016 and the Dr. Lutz Zwillenberg Prize in 2020. Before joining the Inflammasome Lab in 2019, Dr. Burgener had been a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Virology and Immunology at the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern. In the Schroder lab, Dr. Burgener leads a team of Honour and PhD students, interested in understanding how caspase-1 drives inflammatory diseases and if targeting caspase-1 in diseases such as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, and whether inhibition of caspase-1 comes at the cost of increased susceptibility to infection. Their research is funded by SNSF Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (2020-2022) and the Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research Fellowship (2022-2023) and two ARC Discovery Projects (2025-2027).
Availability
- Dr Sabrina Sofia Burgener is:
- Available for supervision
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy, University of Bern
Research interests
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Inflammation & Disease
I am leading an inclusive and creative multidisciplinary research team that will comprehensively define how our immune system drives chronic diseases, seamlessly integrating discovery research with clinically relevant viewpoints to provide novel mechanistic insights into our immune response
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Inflammasome inhibitor - therapeutic trade-off
Inflammasome inhibitors offer tremendous promise as new disease-modifying therapeutics. Inhibitors of one inflammasome (the NLRP3 inflammasome) are now entering Phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of genetic auto-inflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. Broader-spectrum inhibitors that block multiple inflammasomes are currently under development for clinical use in diseases that involve pathological signalling by multiple inflammasomes (e.g. chronic liver disease). But such beneficial functions of these new therapeutics might come at a cost – a “trade-off” – as inflammasome signalling also prevents infections. My research program defines the therapeutic trade-offs of these inflammasome-modulatory agents by rendering individuals susceptible to infections.
Research impacts
My research program comprehensively defines how our immune system drives chronic diseases, seamlessly integrating discovery research with clinically relevant viewpoints to provide novel mechanistic insights into our immune response.
Since my appointment in 2019 as a Senior Research Fellow in Professor Kate Schroder's labratory, I have worked and collaborated in projects that were designed to further understand how inflammasomes drive chronic inflammatory diseases. In addition, since I joined the lab, I have been promoted to Deputy Lab Head of the Disease modelling Team and secured a two Fellowship, Swiss National Science Foundation (2020-2022) and Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research (2022-2023) and had been honored with international prize (2020), and together with Prof. Kate Schroder secured a 2021 UQ Australian Infectious Disease Research Excellence Award. In addition, my work is funded by a MetroSouth co-funded Collaboration Project (2024), Therapeutic Innovation Australia Voucher, and two ARC Discovery Projects as CIA and CIB (2025-2027).
As a supervisor and mentor of HDR students, my vision is to support each student's individual goals and work together to achieve our individual goals and our professional aspirations more effectively. Even more important is to facilitate an honest and healthy work environment where each student and other team members feel capable of performing their best to accomplish a common goal. In my role as supervisor, it is in my interest to facilitate a space for creativity and encourage students to bring in their own ideas and workflow. By passing on scientific knowledge, love and passion for science, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing the younger generation of scientists developing their independence and success beyond the time we worked together.
Works
Search Professor Sabrina Sofia Burgener’s works on UQ eSpace
2016
Conference Publication
Myeloid conditional deletion and transgenic models reveal a threshold for the neutrophil survival factor Serpinb1
Burgener, Sabrina S., Baumann, Mathias, Basilico, Paola, Remold-O'Donnell, Eileen, Touw, Ivo P. and Benarafa, Charaf (2016). Myeloid conditional deletion and transgenic models reveal a threshold for the neutrophil survival factor Serpinb1. 9th General Meeting of the International-Proteolysis-Society (IPS), Penang, Malaysia, 03 - 08 October 2015. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GMBH. doi: 10.1515/hsz-2016-0132
2011
Conference Publication
Activity and long-term stability of self-assembling enzymatic surface coatings
Burgener, Sabrina, Pieles, Uwe and Köser, Joachim (2011). Activity and long-term stability of self-assembling enzymatic surface coatings. Annual Meeting of the Swiss Society for Biomaterials, Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, 4 May 2011. Davos, Switzerland: AO Research Institute Davos.
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Sabrina Sofia Burgener is:
- Available for supervision
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Supervision history
Current supervision
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Doctor Philosophy
Inflammasome inhibitors in disease: Is there a therapeutic trade-off of compromised host defence?
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kate Schroder, Professor Avril Robertson
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Doctor Philosophy
Inflammasome inhibition by molecular and cellular processes in fibrosis (e.g. systemic sclerosis)
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kate Schroder
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Doctor Philosophy
Inflammasomes in tissue homeostasis and wound healing
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kate Schroder
Completed supervision
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2023
Doctor Philosophy
Molecular mechanisms of inflammasome-driven Alzheimer's disease
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Jurgen Götz, Professor Kate Schroder
Media
Enquiries
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