Rate My Professor Adam Collison

Associate Professor Adam Collison is an immunologist in the School of Medicine and Public Health, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, at the University of Newcastle. He completed his undergraduate studies in biomedical science, followed by honours and a PhD in 2012 at the University of Newcastle, conducting research within the Hunter Medical Research Institute asthma group. His career trajectory includes multiple accolades, such as the University of Newcastle Priority Research Centre for Asthma and Respiratory Disease Early Career Award, the 2016 Young Tall Poppy Science Award, and the 2017 TSANZ and National Asthma Council Asthma and Airways Career Development Fellowship for exploring the immunological impacts of improved asthma management during pregnancy on offspring. Collison has secured over $4 million in research funding and authored more than 70 publications, with his work cited over 4,385 times.

Collison's research elucidates why certain individuals develop allergies while others exposed to identical triggers do not, emphasizing early-life exposures including in-utero influences. His investigations span paediatric immunology, miRNA and epigenetic regulation, asthma exacerbations driven by rhinovirus, food allergy diagnostics, eosinophilic oesophagitis, gut microbiome effects, and TRAIL signaling pathways. During honours research, he discovered a novel proinflammatory TRAIL pathway dysregulated in human asthma and eosinophilic oesophagitis, enabling therapeutic interventions in mouse models of rhinovirus-induced allergic airways disease; this innovation resulted in a patent licensed to Proteologics in 2013. His team has developed a blood test distinguishing severe anaphylactic food allergies from milder reactions, validated across study populations. Key publications include 'TRAIL signaling is proinflammatory and proviral in a murine model of rhinovirus 1B infection' (2017), 'Modeling TH2 responses and airway inflammation to understand fundamental mechanisms regulating the pathogenesis of asthma' (2017), 'TRAIL deficiency and PP2A activation with salmeterol ameliorates egg allergen-driven eosinophilic esophagitis' (2016), 'A pathogenic role for tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease' (2016), and 'TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) regulates midline-1, thymic stromal lymphopoietin, inflammation, and remodeling in experimental eosinophilic esophagitis' (2015). As a member of HMRI's Asthma and Breathing Research Program and the Priority Research Centre Grow Up Well, he advances clinical translation and community engagement initiatives.