TSRI Faculty Interests

Lupus

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.