Immunology and Immunotherapy Research Areas

We are studying mechanisms of excessive or autoreactive immune activation and developing novel strategies to prevent and treat pathologies associated with immune dysregulation.

• Moshe Arditi, MD and Shuang Chen MD, PhD – atherosclerosis, Kawasaki disease vasculitis and SLE-induced atherosclerosis; role of IL-1 and IL-17 in atherosclerosis
• Janine Bilsborough, PhD – functional defects in cellular processes contributing to inflammatory bowel disease
• Francesco Boin, MD and Nunzio Bottini – mechanisms of fibrosis in systemic sclerosis
• Nunzio Bottini – Phosphorylation-dependent cell signaling in autoimmunity; role of local stromal cells in inflammatory arthritis
• David Casero, PhD – transcriptional and cellular states underlying inflammatory bowel disease pathogenesis
• Suzanne Cassel, MD and Fayyaz Sutterwala, MD, PhD – inappropriate activation of innate immune receptors driving autoinflammatory and allergic diseases
• Shuang Chen MD, PhD – sex differences in atherosclerosis and immune pathways
• Suzanne Devkota, PhD – role of diet and microbiome in inflammatory bowel disease
• Andrea Dorfleutner, PhD, MS and Christian Stehlik, PhD, MS – hyperactivation of cytosolic PRRs and inflammasomes during inflammatory and autoimmune disease
• Homayon Ghiasi, PhD – contribution of ILC2 to CNS demyelination 
• Jorge Giani, PhD – inflammatory impairment of renal function in diabetes
• David Gibb, MD, PhD – transfusion-induced red blood cell alloantibody responses in lupus
• Sergei Grivennikov, PhD – intestinal inflammation and inflammation-associated cancers
• Caroline Jefferies, PhD – dysregulation of RNA/DNA sensing and type I IFNs in autoimmune and autoinflammatory disease
• Jonathan Kaye, PhD – role of innate lymphoid cell (ILC) effector subpopulations in lung inflammation
• Ekaterina Koltsova, MD, PhD – immune and inflammatory mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysm
• Gislaine Martins de Oliveira, PhD – molecular pathways underlying T cell function in chronic inflammatory conditions
• Kathrin Michelsen, PhD – mechanisms of inflammatory bowel disease, and novel prevention and treatment strategies
• William Parks, PhD – macrophage roles in immune tolerance and suppression
• Shervin Rabizadeh, MD, MBA – pathogenesis and treatment of pediatric inflammatory bowel disease
• Ekihiro Seki, MD, PhD – alcohol- and metabolic-syndrome-associated liver inflammation and fibrosis
• Prediman Shah, MD  – innate and adaptive immunity and immune modulation in atherosclerosis and myocardial maladaptation
• Kenichi Shimada, PhD – role of protein citrullination in Kawasaki disease; role of autophagy, mitophagy and IL-1 signaling in acute lung injury
• David Underhill, PhD – mechanisms of inflammation in inflammatory and allergic diseases
• Ivan Vujkovic-Cvijin, PhD – human-associated microbial contributors to inflammatory diseases, including IBD
• Michifumi Yamashita, MD, PhD – molecular pathogenesis of glomerulonephritis

We are investigating how innate immune cells detect microbes and other danger signals and defining the roles they play in immunity and inflammation, including activation of adaptive immune responses.

• Kenneth Bernstein, MD – how angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) increases myeloid responses
• Jonathan Braun, MD, PhD – response to metabolites of the intestinal microbiome
• Suzanne Cassel, MD and Fayyaz Sutterwala, MD, PhD – mechanism of action of NLR family members by sterile and infectious stimuli
• Suzanne Devkota, PhD – microbiome and macrophage differentiation
• Andrea Dorfleutner, PhD, MS and Christian Stehlik, PhD, MS – regulation of cytosolic PRR signaling, inflammasome activation and type I interferon responses
• Homayon Ghiasi, PhD – M1 and M2 macrophages in eye disease; role of type I IFN and DCs in HSV-1 latency-reactivation
• Jorge Giani, PhD and Kenneth Bernstein, MD – role of myeloid cells overexpressing angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) in controlling the metabolism of obese mice
• David Gibb, MD, PhD – promotion of red blood cell alloimmunization by innate immune signaling and cytokine production
• Sergei Grivennikov, PhD – regulation of inflammation and cancer by innate immune cell cytokines
• Lena Heung, MD, PhD – innate immune responses to respiratory fungal pathogens
• Caroline Jefferies, PhD – altered immunometabolism of myeloid cells as a driver of lupus pathology and autoimmune-driven cardiac disease
• Jonathan Kaye, PhD – regulation of a novel subpopulation of IL-10-producing ILC2 cells
• Jonathan Kaye, PhD and Noah Merin, MD, PhD – NK cell reconstitution following haploidentical stem cell transplant
• Zakir Khan, PhD, MSc – role of renin-angiotensin system in myeloid cell development and function
• Ekaterina Koltsova, MD, PhD – cytokines as immune checkpoints in inflammation, cancer and cardiovascular diseases
• Noah Merin, MD, PhD – NK cells in allogeneic stem cell transplantation and NK graft-versus-malignancy effects; killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) biology   
• Kathrin Michelsen, PhD – roles of innate immune cells in inflammatory bowel disease
• William Parks, PhD – checkpoints moderating neutrophil activation
• Ekihiro Seki, MD, PhD – role of Toll-like receptors and extracellular matrix as signal inducers in liver diseases, and response to these signals on Kupffer cells and hepatic stellate cells
• Prediman Shah, MD  – innate and adaptive immunity/immune modulation in atherosclerosis
• Prediman Shah, MD  and Behrooz Sharifi, PhD– innate immunity in myocardial maladaptation in response to pressure overload and ischemia
• Kenichi Shimada, PhD – role of IL-1 responses in neutrophils in acute lung injury; NLRP3 inflammasome activation and mitochondria
• David Underhill, PhD – receptors and signaling mechanisms involved in myeloid cell detection of microbes
• Andrea Wolf, PhD – impact of microbial products on macrophage and dendritic cell inflammation and metabolism
• Michifumi Yamashita, MD, PhD – roles of innate immunity in glomerular disease
• Bin Zheng, PhD – metabolic regulation in myeloid-derived suppressor cells

We are defining the roles of adaptive immune cells, including effector, memory and regulatory subsets, and investigating how they are activated and regulated.

• Moshe Arditi, MD and Shuang Chen MD, PhD – regulation of Th17 cells by RIP2 in atherosclerosis
• Francesco Boin, MD – role of autoantigen-specific T cells in the pathogenesis of systemic sclerosis and other rheumatic diseases
• Nunzio Bottini – T cell plasticity in inflammatory arthritis
• David Casero, PhD – transcriptional programs involved in terminal differentiation and activation of lamina propria adaptive immune cells, and their role in inflammatory bowel disease pathogenesis and treatment response
• Suzanne Cassel, MD and Fayyaz Sutterwala, MD, PhD – interplay between innate immune activation and the generation of appropriate CD4 T cell responses
• David Gibb, MD, PhD – B cell differentiation during alloimmune responses to red blood cell transfusion
• Jonathan Kaye, PhD – role of TOX nuclear protein family in immune system development and function
• Gislaine Martins de Oliveira, PhD  – memory T cell responses
• Kathrin Michelsen, PhD – effector T cells and their roles in chronic inflammatory diseases

We are studying immune responses in the lung and gut as well as at other mucosal surfaces and investigating how commensal microbes in these locations interact with the immune system to maintain health or cause disease.

• Janine Bilsborough, PhD – functional defects in microbial recognition at the gut-microbe interface in inflammatory bowel disease
• Jonathan Braun, MD, PhD – metabolites of the intestinal microbiome; role of the intestinal microbiome in epithelial development and carcinogenesis
• David Casero, PhD – computational integration of multiomics datasets to identify microbial features involved in inflammatory bowel disease
• Peter Chen, MD – microbiome effects on lung immunity during influenza infection
• Timothy Crother, PhD – role of RIP2 in Th17 cells in inflammatory bowel disease
• Suzanne Devkota, PhD – gut microbiota translocation and host barrier function
• Andrea Dorfleutner, PhD, MS and Christian Stehlik, PhD, MS – intestinal homeostasis and microbial diversity, and defects leading to inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer
• Sergei Grivennikov, PhD – regulation of cancer initiation, progression and metastasis by the microbiota and microbe-derived signals
• Ekaterina Koltsova, MD, PhD – regulation of immune activation and inflammatory-driven diseases by microbes and microbial metabolites
• Gislaine Martins de Oliveira, PhD – shaping of tissue immunity by the commensal microbiota
• Kathrin Michelsen, PhD – immune interactions with commensal microbes in inflammatory bowel disease
• Magali Noval Rivas, PhD – breakdown of oral tolerance in food allergy; role of microbiome and metabolites and the immune response in Kawasaki disease vasculitis
• William Parks, PhD – control of airway epithelial defenses against pathogens
• Ekihiro Seki, MD, PhD – gut microbiome effects on alcohol- and metabolic-syndrome-associated liver inflammation and fibrosis
• Priya Soni, MD –  gut microbiome and metabolites in Kawasaki disease translational studies
• David Underhill, PhD – effects of fungal and bacterial microbiota on immune function and inflammatory bowel disease
• Ivan Vujkovic-Cvijin, PhD – gut microbiota effects on host mucosal and systemic immunity; host immune control of microbiota composition; effects of diet on microbiota-mediated inflammation

We are defining mechanisms of immune cell production in the bone marrow, thymus and other lymphoid tissues.

• Kenneth Bernstein, MD – how angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) increases myeloid responses
• Helen Goodridge, PhD – production and functional programming of myeloid cells
• Jonathan Kaye, PhD – molecular regulation of T cell and innate lymphoid cell (ILC) development
• Ekaterina Koltsova, MD, PhD – cytokines in emergency myelopoiesis and abdominal aortic aneurysms

We are studying the role of immune cells and inflammation in the brain and other parts of the nervous system with the goal of developing immune-targeting strategies to prevent and treat neurodegenerative diseases.

• Timothy Crother, PhD – Chlamydia pneumoniae infection and Alzheimer's disease
• Homayon Ghiasi, PhD – contribution of ILC2 to CNS demyelination
• Maya Koronyo-Hamaoui, PhD – neuroinflammation in neurodegeneration and cognitive decline; retinal inflammation in Alzheimer's disease; immune therapy for Alzheimer's disease
• Santhosh Nadipuram, MD – Toxoplasma gondii and Alzheimer's disease

We are defining the molecular basis of disease pathobiology to identify potential therapeutic targets and develop new drugs to treat inflammatory disease, autoimmunity and cancer.

• Janine Bilsborough, PhD – identification of therapeutic targets and biomarkers for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease
• David Casero, PhD – deep molecular phenotyping approaches and identification of biomarkers to improve patient stratification in inflammatory bowel disease
• Sergei Grivennikov, PhD – cell type-specific cytokine signaling and preclinical models to target cytokines in inflammatory diseases and the tumor microenvironment
• Ramachandran Murali, PhD  – identification and development of novel therapeutics of Treg function for autoimmunity
• Ramachandran Murali, PhD and Caroline Jefferies, PhD – identification and development of novel therapeutics for the treatment of lupus
• Ramachandran Murali, PhD and Jonathan Kaye, PhD – development of small molecule probes and therapeutics to regulate T cell responses
• Ramachandran Murali, PhD and David Underhill – development and characterization of novel therapeutics regulating innate inflammatory signaling
• Ekihiro Seki, MD, PhD – novel therapeutic agents for alcohol- and metabolic-syndrome-associated liver inflammation and fibrosis
• Ivan Vujkovic-Cvijin, PhD – identification of dietary compounds with precision microbiota-editing capacities; optimization of fecal microbiota transplantation response rates
• Alexander Xu, PhD – machine learning approaches to derive therapeutic targets from molecular spatial data
• Ruan Zhang, PhD, Stanley Jordan, MD, and S. Ananth Karumanchi, MD – novel tolerogenic agents for transplantation tolerance and autoimmunity
• Bin Zheng, PhD – targeting metabolic vulnerabilities in myeloid-derived suppressor cells for the treatment of cancer

We are studying mechanisms underlying immune rejection of donor tissues and graft-versus-host responses and developing novel strategies to prevent and treat these conditions.

• David Gibb, MD, PhD – mechanisms of red blood cell alloimmunization in sickle cell disease
• Peter Heeger - mechanisms of organ transplant rejection in mice and humans; mechanistic clinical trials in kidney, heart and lung transplant recipients; biomarkers to predict transplant outcomes
• Jonathan Kaye, PhD and Noah Merin, MD, PhD – immune reconstitution following haploidentical stem cell transplant in the context of cancer treatment
• Noah Merin, MD, PhD – reduced-intensity, reduced-immunosuppression regimens for allogeneic stem cell transplantation
• Ruan Zhang, PhD, and Stanley Jordan, MD – donor-specific Treg generation by costimulatory blockade and/or IL-6/IL-6R signaling blockade for transplant patients
• Ruan Zhang, PhD, and Stanley Jordan, MD – gene expression biomarkers for kidney graft rejection prediction

We are defining the role of the immune system in cancer and developing novel therapeutic strategies to exploit the immune system to kill tumors.

• Moshe Arditi, MD – regulation of neutrophil development and responses via testosterone signaling during metastatic cancer
• Kenneth Bernstein, MD – angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) overexpression and tumor resistance
• Jonathan Braun, MD, PhD – role of the intestinal microbiome in epithelial development and carcinogenesis
• Suzanne Cassel, MD and Fayyaz Sutterwala, MD, PhD – regulation of anti-melanoma T cell responses by innate immune responses
• Andrea Dorfleutner, PhD, MS and Christian Stehlik, PhD, MS – type I interferon-mediated intestinal dysbiosis in colon cancer; cytoskeletal rearrangement in breast cancer
• Sergei Grivennikov, PhD – targeting tumor-promoting inflammation to halt gastrointestinal cancer progression, metastasis and therapy resistance
• Jonathan Kaye, PhD and Dan Theodorescu, MD, PhD – role of TOX in anti-tumor responses; regulation of immune responses by anti-tumor combination therapies
• Zakir Khan, PhD, MSc – enhancing anti-tumor immunity of myeloid cells
• Hyung Kim, MD – influence of regulatory T cells on cancer immunotherapy; strategies to optimize memory T cells during cancer immunotherapy
• Ekaterina Koltsova, MD, PhD – cytokines as immunological checkpoints for innate and adaptive immune cells in liver cancer
• Akil Merchant, MD – multiplex imaging of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment
• Noah Merin, MD, PhD – cancer cell and natural killer (NK) cell interactions; clinical trial of bispecific T-cell engager blinatumomab combined with donor lymphocyte infusions for acute lymphoblastic leukemia
• Ramachandran Murali, PhD and John Yu, MD – molecular and structural aspects of tumor-associated macrophages and suppressive T cells in the tumor microenvironment
• Ekihiro Seki, MD, PhD – effect of fatty liver on the immune microenvironment in liver metastases of gastrointestinal cancer
• David Underhill, PhD – effects of intestinal microbes on anti-tumor immunity
• Andrea Wolf, PhD – programming of myeloid cells by microbial products to be anti-tumorigenic
• Alexander Xu, PhD – tumor immune microenvironment imaging and biomarkers
• John Yu, MD – macrophages and T cells in the tumor microenvironment
• Bin Zheng, PhD – metabolic control of anti-tumor immunity in the tumor microenvironment