Professor Claudia Nold is a pharmacist by training with broad expertise in cytokine biology, inflammation and immunology. After her graduation from pharmacy school in 2000, she was awarded a competitive three-year PhD Fellowship by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (the German NHMRC equivalent) and started her PhD at the Pharmazentrum Frankfurt, Germany. This fellowship entailed a 6-month tenure at the Institute of Asthma and Allergy at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

From 2006 until 2009 she held a post-doctoral position in Denver, Colorado, USA in the laboratory of Professor Charles A. Dinarello, who first described the function of Interleukin 1. Some of her achievements of this productive time included the description of anti-viral, endothelial and angiogenic properties of interleukin (IL-)32, and the important paper on the functional differences between monocytes and macrophages (200+ citations).

In 2009, Prof C Nold was recruited to The Ritchie Centre at Hudson Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, and continued to publish at a very high level. Of outstanding importance, however, was the discovery of the function of IL-37, which has had a major impact on the interleukin field, leading to a fundamental reorganisation of the nomenclature of the IL-1 family of cytokines in 2010.

In 2011 she was awarded the Christina Fleischmann Award of the International Society of Interferon and Cytokine Research. This award recognizes young female investigators for notable contributions to basic or clinical research. The second achievement exemplifies the translational trajectory that is key to her laboratory: her team has completed the bedside-to-bench-and-back circuit with their work on interleukin 1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra) in early life diseases of the lung and heart, such as bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), pulmonary hypertension associated with BPD (BPD-PH). IL-1Ra is a natural protein that blocks IL-1, and has been safely used to treat many other diseases for decades. There is an urgent medical need to find the first safe and effective treatment for BPD and BPD-PH in the neonatal intensive care unit, and the Nold laboratory showed in a preclinical model that IL-1Ra prevents these early life diseases. The cross-disciplinary team has now designed a clinical trial offering preterm infants an anti-inflammatory treatment specifically tailored to address one of the major disease-causing inflammatory mediators, thereby giving these young patients a brighter outlook on life.

In 2014 Prof C Nold was awarded the top ranked Future Leader Fellowship and received the 2015 Paul Korner Innovation Award of the Australian Heart Foundation and a L1 NHMRC Investigator Grant in 2020.

Because of these innovative programs, the Nold team has been awarded philanthropic and NHMRC grant funding, filed several patents and is collaborating with pharmaceutical industry. These achievements received the Monash Vice-Chancellor’s Team Award for Research Enterprise in 2018.

Selected publications

• Bujotzek A, Tiefenthaler G, Lariviere L, D’Andrea L, Marquez EA, Rudloff I, Cho SX, Deen NS, Richter W, Regenass-Lechner F, Poehler A, Whisstock JC, Sydow-Andersen J, Reiser X, Schuster S, Neubauer J, Hoepfl S, Richter K, Nold MF, Nold-Petry CA, Schumacher F, Ellisdon AM (2022). Protein engineering of a stable and potent anti-inflammatory IL-37-Fc fusion with enhanced therapeutic potential. Cell Chem Biol. 2022 Apr 21;29(4):586-596.e4.

• Christie MJ, Irving AT, Forster SC, Marsland BJ, Hansbro PM, Hertzog PJ, Nold-Petry CA, Nold MF (2022). Of bats and men: Immunomodulatory treatment options for COVID-19 guided by the immunopathology of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Sci Immunol. 2021 Sep 17;6(63):eabd0205. doi: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abd0205. Epub 2021 Sep 17. PMID: 34533977.

• Cho SX, Rudloff I, Lao JC, Pang MA, Goldberg R, Bui CB, McLean CA, Stock M, Klassert TE, Slevogt H, Mangan NE, Cheng W, Fischer D, Gfroerer S, Sandhu MK, Ngo D, Bujotzek A, Lariviere L, Schumacher F, Tiefenthaler G, Beker F, Collins C, Kamlin COF, König K, Malhotra A, Tan K, Theda C, Veldman A, Ellisdon AM, Whisstock JC, Berger PJ, Nold-Petry CA, Nold MF (2022). Characterization of the pathoimmunology of necrotizing enterocolitis reveals novel therapeutic opportunities. Nat Commun. 2020 Nov 13;11(1):5794.

• Lao JC, Bui CB, Pang MA, Cho SX, Rudloff I, Elgass K, Schröder J, Maksimenko A, Mangan NE, Starkey MR, Skuza EM, Sun YBY, Beker F, Collins CL, Kamlin OF, König K, Malhotra A, Tan K, Theda C, Young MJ, McLean CA, Wilson NJ, Sehgal A, Hansbro PM, Pearson JT, Polo JM, Veldman A, Berger PJ, Nold-Petry CA, Nold MF (2022). Type 2 immune polarization is associated with cardiopulmonary disease in preterm infants. Sci Transl Med. 2022 Apr 6;14(639):eaaz8454.

• Nold-Petry CA, Lo CY, Rudloff I, Elgass KD, Li S, Gantier MP, Lotz-Havla AS, Gersting SW, Cho SX, Lao JC, Ellisdon AM, Rotter B, Azam T, Mangan NE, Rossello FJ, Whisstock JC, Bufler P, Garlanda C, Mantovani A, Dinarello CA, Nold MF. IL-37 requires the receptors IL-18Rα and IL-1R8 (SIGIRR) to carry out its multifaceted anti-inflammatory program upon innate signal transduction. Nat Immunol, March 2015

• Nold MF, Mangan NE, Rudloff I, Cho SX, Shariatian N, Samarasinghe TD, Skuza EM,Veldman A, Berger PJ, Nold-Petry, CA. Interleukin 1 receptor antagonist prevents murine BPD induced by perinatal inflammation and hyperoxia.PNAS 2013, 110(35):14384-89.

• Nold MF, Nold-Petry CA, Zepp JA, Palmer BE, Bufler P, Dinarello CA. IL-37 is a fundamental inhibitor of innate immunity. Nat Immunol 2010, 11(11):1014-22.

• Nold-Petry CA, Rudloff I, Baumer Y, Ruvo M, Marasco D, Botti P, Farkas L, Cho SX, Zepp JA, Azam T, Dinkel H, Palmer BE, Boisvert WA, Cool CD, Taraseviciene-Stewart L, Heinhuis B, Joosten LA, Dinarello CA, Voelkel NF, Nold MF. IL-32 promotes angiogenesis. J Immunol 2014, 192(2):589-602.

• Zepp JA, Nold-Petry CA, Dinarello CA, Nold MF. Protection from RNA- and DNA-viruses by IL-32. J Immunol 2011, 186(7):4110-8. [featured among 10% best papers in the issue]

• Nold-Petry CA, Nold MF, Zepp JA, Kim SH, Voelkel NF, Dinarello CA. IL-32-dependent effects of IL-1beta on endothelial cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106(10):3883-8, March 2009

• Netea MG, Nold-Petry CA, Nold MF, Joosten LA, Opitz B, van der Meer JH, van de Veerdonk FL, Ferwerda G, Heinhuis B, Devesa I, Funk CJ, Mason RJ, Kullberg BJ, Rubartelli A, van der Meer JW, Dinarello CA. Differential requirement for the activation of the inflammasome for processing and release of IL-1beta in monocytes and macrophages. Blood 2009, 113(10):2324-35.