Linda Sherman, PhD

Recognition of Self and Tumor Antigens. Fundamental to the strategy of the immune system is discrimination between self and non-self. This enables the immune system to respond to and eliminate foreign pathogens without harming one's own tissues. Autoimmune disease represents aberrant immune destruction of self-tissue, whereas other diseases such as cancer are, in part, due to immune tolerance of self. One goal of our laboratory is to augment the ability of T lymphocytes to respond to certain self-antigens in order to eliminate tumor cells. To this end, we utilize a variety of transgenic murine models in order to study autoimmunity and tumor immunity. In particular, we are studying how expression of proteins in normal tissues alters immune recognition and responsiveness to antigens of these proteins when they are subsequently encountered on normal tissue or tumor cells. We use similar models to probe defects in immune tolerance that result in autoimmune destruction of pancreatic islets leading to type 1 diabetes.