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TSRI Faculty Interests
Immunology Beutler, Bruce
searches for genes that are required for normal immune function through germline mutagenesis and positional cloning.
Bokoch, Gary
studies the control and integration of cellular activities initiated by GTP-binding proteins, seeking to determine how GTP-binding proteins function, how they are regulated at the molecular level, and how this regulation may be abnormal in various disease states.
Burton, Dennis
focuses his research primarily on human antibody responses to HIV and the design of an HIV vaccine. He has also worked on the interaction of antibodies and other pathogens, including respiratory syncytial virus, Ebola virus and prion proteins.
Dickerson, Tobin
develops biochemical technologies for predicting and treating evolving disease such as influenza, hepatitis C, and cancer, high-throughput screening paradigms for protein-ligand agonists/antagonists, combating filarial parasites, and the modulation of botulinum neurotoxin.
Feeney, Ann
studies the epigenetic and genetic mechanisms that control the accessibility of antibody V, D, and J genes to undergo V(D)J recombination, determining why individual V genes rearrange with very different frequencies, and determining how the generation of the antibody repertoire and B cell tolerance mechanisms are misregulated in murine models of autoimmune disease
Gascoigne, Nicholas
examines molecular and genetic interactions in T cell development and activation, including the spatiotemporal analysis of signaling cascades using fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and other techniques to image molecular interactions in live cells.
Havran, Wendy
studies a unique subset of T lymphocytes, called "gamma-delta" T cells, which reside in epithelial tissues, are derived from fetal precursors, express a tissue-specific, invariant antigen receptor, and are involved in tissue repair as well as epithelial inflammatory diseases such as asthma and ulcerative colitis.
Jameson, Julie
is examining the mechanisms involved in the dysregulation of skin γδ T cells in nonhealing wounds.
Janda, Kim
Investigates biological catalysts, development of methods for the detection of and protection against chemical/biological warfare agents, combinatorial chemical libraries, synthesis and evaluation of enzyme inhibitors, solid-phase organic synthesis, quorum sensing within bacterial systems, lead discovery and detection strategies for tropical diseases, antibody/peptide phage display libraries, cell-penetrating peptides as therapeutic delivery vehicles, and the application of immunopharmacotherapy in the treatment of drug addiction, cancer and obesity.
Kono, Dwight
is investigating the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus and mercury-induced autoimmunity as well as seeking to identify new potential therapeutic targets through novel approaches; his main interest is to define both predisposing genes and genes critical for disease development.
McHeyzer-Williams, Michael G.
studies the cellular and molecular regulation of antigen-specific immune memory in vivo with emphasis on the innate/adaptive interface and helper T cell regulated B cell responses to optimize vaccines.
McKay, Dianne
explores the intracellular signaling events and pathways that lead to the tolerance or rejection of transplanted organs by T cells.
Mowen, Kerri
investigates the molecular events which control T helper cell and mast cell function, specifically studying a role for the posttranslational modification of arginine methylation by isolating novel substrates, determining the effects of arginine methylation on substrate function, and creating mice deficient in the enzymes that regulate arginine methylation.
Nemazee, David
studies "receptor editing," a novel immunological tolerance mechanism in which developing B lymphocytes that carry autoreactive cell surface antibody are stimulated to "reprogram" their immunoglobulin genes by further rounds of DNA recombination.
Nemerow, Glen
investigates the interaction of adenovirus with host cells, looking at the basic mechanisms involved in virus attachment, internalization, membrane penetration, and nuclear localization, and seeking to design novel adenoviral vectors with increased capacity to deliver therapeutic genes to specific cell types.
Oldstone, Michael
studies the interaction of viruses and the immune system, how viruses persist and the resultant disease, how a non-lytic virus alters the differentiation function of the infected cell, investigates infectious protein folding disease and uses transgenic mouse models to understand human diseases. Included are molecular explorations for how viruses suppress the immune system or on the other side of the coin, induce autoimmunity.
Ollmann Saphire, Erica
combines x-ray crystallography, biochemistry, and immunology to analyse proteins that play key roles in the pathogenesis of Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fevers; structures of these proteins provide templates for vaccine design and enable rapid responses to newly emerging forms of the viruses.
Paulson, James
studies carbohydrate recognition and the molecular biology of carbohydrate binding proteins, like CD22, which mediate key aspects of cell signaling in the immune system.
Quigley, James
uses in vivo models, directed enzyme inhibitors and specific function-blocking antibodies to identify pathways and molecules which contribute to tumor metastasis and angiogenesis.
Salomon, Daniel
investigates how molecular mechanisms driving immune cell activation and tissue injury, both critical components of cell and organ transplant rejection, are regulated at the gene transcriptional and proteomic level to map molecular networks that determine clinical outcomes.
Sauer, Karsten
We combine broad functional genomics approaches with traditional, hypothesis-driven research to identify and functionally characterize novel genes with important roles in lymphocyte development and function. A particular focus of the lab are signal transduction mechanisms downstream of the T cell receptor.
Sherman, Linda
looks at the immune system's basic strategy of discriminating between "self" and "non-self" through T lymphocytes, seeking to augment their ability to respond to certain self-antigens on tumor cells and to diminish their aberrant destruction of self-tissue in autoimmune diseases.
Surh, Charles
studies how naive and memory T cells develop and survive under normal physiological conditions, and explores new ways of modulating T cells populations for treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Theofilopoulos, Argyrios
works on the identification of predisposing and effector genes in systemic autoimmunity, as exemplified in spontaneous mouse models of lupus. Both forward (phenotype → genes) and reverse (gene → phenotype) approaches are used and several genes that promote (type I and II IFNs) or suppress (coronin 1A) this disease have thus far been identified.
Whitton, J. Lindsay
studies antiviral immunity mediated by the recognition of viral peptides by host cells, the basis of immunization with plasmid DNA vaccines, and the role of the immune system in viral pathogenesis during coxsackievirus infections.
Wilson, Ian
has broad structural biology and structural genomics programs to determine thee-dimensional structure and biological function in a number of systems related to humoral, cellular and innate immunity, human disease, drug and vaccine design, influenza virus, HIV-1 , the expanding protein universe and metagenomics.
Xiao, Changchun
studies the functions of microRNA control and its underlying molecular mechanisms in the mammalian immune system, under health and disease conditions.
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