Research groups
Dr Tegan McTaggart
PhD, Bsc
Post Doctoral Researcher
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are essential mediators of immune tolerance, yet in cancer their suppressive function can contribute directly to disease progression by restraining anti-tumour immunity. Understanding the molecular signals that drive context-dependent Treg activity is fundamental to identifying therapeutic strategies that can selectively modulate Treg function across disease settings. My research addresses this by investigating how lipid mediators regulate Treg biology, positioning lipid signalling as a central and underexplored axis of immune regulation in cancer and autoimmunity.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr Tegan McTaggart is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Oncology at the University of Oxford, where she investigates how lipid mediators regulate regulatory T cell function in cancer and autoimmunity.
Awarded her PhD in Immunology from Newcastle University in April 2026, Tegan's doctoral work dissected the regulatory networks governing co-receptor and regulatory T cell function in healthy and perturbed ageing. This work produced high-impact findings, most notably a co-first author paper in (Nature Immunology, 2025) demonstrating that PD-1 receptor deficiency enhances CD30⁺ Treg activity in melanoma, providing a novel mechanism of resistance to checkpoint immunotherapy with important implications for the treatment of melanoma. In addition, further publications characterised Treg communication patterns in very old healthy adults (Aging Cell, 2025) and defined targetable mechanisms of disease in the autoimmune disease, psoriatic arthritis (PsA) (J Biol Chem, 2025) .
Her research has been recognised with a BSI Career Enhancing Grant and a Mayo Clinic Kogod Center Travel Award, and her findings have been highlighted internationally by academic and public science outlets. She holds a BSc in Biomedical Sciences (First Class Honours) from Newcastle University.