麻豆传媒

Larry S. Schlesinger, MD is an internationally recognized authority in infectious diseases with a particular interest in tuberculosis and lung biology. He earned a BA in Biology from Cornell University and MD from Rutgers Medical School. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan and clinical and research fellowships in Infectious Diseases at UCLA. He joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 1991 where he served as Fellowship Director for the Division of Infectious Diseases and Associate Chair of the Department of Medicine. He moved to the Ohio State University in 2002 where he served as Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine until 2011 when he became first chair of Microbial Infection & Immunity. During his tenure he founded the Center for Microbial Interface Biology, a Board of Trustees approved university-wide center with a focus on infectious diseases of concern to public health. In 2017 he became President and CEO of Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio, TX. 
Dr. Schlesinger is a leading physician scientist whose studies focus on the pathogenesis of tuberculosis and other airborne infectious agents that subvert lung immune mechanisms. His discoveries have led to greater insight into the unique attributes that soluble and cellular components of the innate immune system of humans bring to the microbe-host interface (with a focus on human macrophages), translating them into drug discovery platforms. He is a prolific scholar, having authored more than 170 peer-reviewed articles, served as editor of 2 books and has written several chapters in leading textbooks on tuberculosis and lung biology. He has been continually funded for nearly 30 years by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies as well as private foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
He is a current NIH NIAID Council member, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association of American Physicians and American Academy of Microbiology, and OSU鈥檚 2011 Distinguished Scholar and 2105 COM Distinguished Professor.

Joanne Turner, Ph.D., is the Vice President for Research at Texas Biomedical Research Institute. In addition to her administrative role, where she oversees the research functions of Texas Biomed, she also manages a research program. Her research focuses on immunology of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection and immunology of aging. More specifically, she studies the changes that take place in the immune system during the natural aging process and how those changes can influence both innate and adaptive immune function when infected with M. tuberculosis. She also studies immune responses that correlate with an individual鈥檚 susceptibility to reactivate a previously latent infection with M. tuberculosis. Dr. Turner received her Ph.D. in Immunology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She started with Texas Biomed this past summer, having previously served as a Professor and Biosafety Level 3 Program Director at The Ohio State University. 

Shane Crotty, Ph.D., and his team study immunity against infectious diseases. They investigate how the immune system remembers infections and vaccines. By remembering infections and vaccines, the body is protected from becoming infected in the future. Vaccines are one of the most cost-effective medical treatments in modern civilization and are responsible for saving millions of lives. Yet, good vaccines are very difficult to design, and very few new vaccines have been made in the past 10 years. A better understanding of immune memory will facilitate the ability to make new vaccines. Dr. Tony Fauci, NIH, referred to some of the Crotty lab work as “exceedingly important to the field of immunogen design.”
Dr. Crotty is a member of the LJI Coronavirus Task Force. The Crotty Lab, in close collaboration with the lab of LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, Dr. Biol. Sci., was the first to publish a detailed analysis of the immune system’s response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 (). The made a number of important findings. Most importantly, it showed that the immune system activates all three major branches of “adaptive immunity” (which learns to recognize specific viruses) to try to fight the virus: CD4 “helper” T cells , CD8 “killer” T cells, and antibodies. The LJI team found good immune responses to multiple different parts of SARS-CoV-2 (imagine the virus is made out of legos, and the immune system can recognize different individual legos), including the Spike protein, which is the main target of almost all COVID-19 vaccine efforts.
Dr. Crotty has a major focus studying human immune responses to vaccines. His lab is hard at work on candidate HIV vaccines with the CHAVID consortium. His lab is also hard at work on vaccine strategies for influenza, strep throat, and COVID-19. The Crotty lab studies new vaccine ideas and strategies that may be applicable to many diseases, based on a fundamental understanding of the underlying immune responses, and how the cells of the immune system interact. 
Dr. Crotty regularly does media outreach on vaccines and immunity to infectious diseases. Dr. Crotty is also the author of Ahead of the Curve, a biography of Nobel laureate scientist David Baltimore, published in 2001, and reviewed in The Wall Street Journal and other publications. He earned his B.S. in Biology and Writing from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1996, and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology/Virology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2001.

Mobeen Rathore, MD, is chief of infectious diseases for UF Health Jacksonville and Wolfson Children's Hospital, and Professor and Associate Chair for the UF College of Medicine, Jacksonville. He is the Founding Director of UF Center for HIV/AIDS Research, Education and Service. Dr. Rathore has served on the board of Wolfson Children鈥檚 Hospital and UF Jacksonville practice plan. 

Dr. Rathore is an infectious disease specialist in Jacksonville, FL, and has been practicing for 29 years. He graduated from King Edward Med College in 1983 and specializes in infectious disease medicine. Dr. Rathore specializes in Pediatric Infectious Diseases cares for children through the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of infectious diseases.

Dr. Rathore has not only closed the 鈥渢own-and-gown鈥� gap in medicine, but he is also very active in the community serving on the boards of OneJax (a diversity/inclusion advocacy organization) and Environmental Protection Board. He is President of the board of MASS free clinic for the uninsured and President-elect of Leadership Jacksonville. 

A fervent advocate for all children and especially children with HIV he has been instrumental in the improvement of HIV care of children and pregnant women in the State of Florida. He is the Medical Director of Children鈥檚 Medical Service for Northeast Florida.

Dr. Rathore is a nominee for President-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

Jason McLellan specializes in understanding the structure and function of viral proteins, including those of coronaviruses. His research focuses on applying structural information to the rational design of vaccines and other therapies for viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. McLellan and his team collaborated with researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases鈥� Vaccine Research Center to design a stabilized version of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which forms the basis of several leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including those by Moderna, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer/BioNTech.

Dr. McLellan earned a BS in chemistry with an emphasis in biochemistry from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Afterward, he obtained his PhD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Leahy. He then carried out postdoctoral research at the National Institutes of Health's Vaccine Research Center in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Kwong and in collaboration with Dr. Barney Graham. In the Fall of 2013, he joined the faculty at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in the Department of Biochemistry, and in January 2018 he moved his laboratory to the University of Texas at Austin and became a member of the Department of Molecular Biosciences.

Awards: 
2020 William Prusoff Memorial Award (International Society for Antiviral Research)

2019 Viruses Young Investigator in Virology Prize

2018 American Crystallographic Association Etter Early Career Award

2015 Charles H. Hood Foundation Child Health Research Award

2012 Norman P. Salzman Memorial Award in Virology

Dr. Inderpal Randhawa is a leading specialist with board certifications in allergy, immunology, pulmonology, general pediatrics, and internal medicine. He gained interest in food allergy while serving as a sub-investigator in an early study utilizing Omalizumab (Trade name: Xolair). Meanwhile, he was witnessing a dramatic and unprecedented increase in the number of pediatric patients admitted to the intensive care unit as the result of anaphylaxis. The severity and frequency of these cases drove Dr. Randhawa to question the direction of food allergy treatment and motivated him to find more effective solutions than those from clinical trials.

In addition, Dr. Randhawa had experience desensitizing lung transplant patients with life-threatening allergies to critical and indispensable anti-rejection drugs that utilized a patient-specific desensitization protocol. These experiences, and his collaboration with national allergy and immunology specialists, informed Dr. Randhawa鈥檚 precision medicine approach to treating food allergy. Since 2005, he has successfully treated more than 2,000 patients with life-threatening allergies to peanut, tree nuts, milk, egg, wheat, soy, seafood, seeds, and other foods using his unique, research-based Tolerance Induction Program, achieving an unmatched 99% rate of success.

Dr. Randhawa serves as the program director and research coordinator in two fellowship programs at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine and UC Irvine 鈥� Miller Children鈥檚 Hospital. In addition, he practices clinical medicine in pulmonary diseases, immune deficiencies, allergy and transplant medicine. Dr. Randhawa is also the Founder and Medical Director of the Translational Pulmonary and Immunology Research Center (TPIRC).

Dr. Randhawa received his medical degree from Northwestern University鈥檚 Feinberg School of Medicine. After completing a combined internal medicine/pediatrics residency, he completed training in Clinical Immunology & Allergy at UCLA and pediatric and adult pulmonology at UC Irvine 鈥� Miller Children鈥檚 Hospital. Dr. Randhawa has authored over 150 peer reviewed abstracts and research publications and has served as primary investigator in over 25 clinical trials.

Dr. Gary Kleiner, MD is an Allergy & Immunology Specialist in Miami, FL, and has over 25 years of experience in the medical field.  He graduated from SUNY Downstate M C Coll Med medical school in 1995.

Susan R. Bailey, MD, an allergist/immunologist from Fort Worth, Texas, was elected president of the American Medical Association in June 2020. Previously, she served as president-elect of the AMA for one year, speaker of the AMA House of Delegates for four years and as vice speaker for four years.

Dr. Bailey, who has been active in the AMA since medical school when she served as chair of the AMA Medical Student Section, has held numerous leadership positions with the AMA. These include serving as chair of both the Advisory Panel on Women in Medicine and the AMA Council on Medical Education, as well as representing the AMA on the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the American Board of Medical Specialties, and COLA.

Her long history of service in helping guide organized medicine extends to the local and state levels as well. She has served as board chair and president of the Tarrant County Medical Society, and as vice speaker, speaker and president of the Texas Medical Association.

Dr. Bailey is an allergist in private practice, and has been with Fort Worth Allergy and Asthma Associates for over 30 years. She completed her residency in general pediatrics and a fellowship in allergy/immunology at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minn., and is board certified in allergy and immunology, and pediatrics and has been awarded the title of Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology.

In addition to receiving her medical degree with honors from the Texas A&M University College of Medicine
as a member of its charter class, Dr. Bailey was later appointed to the Texas A&M System Board of Regents by then Gov. George W. Bush, and has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas A&M University and of Texas A&M University College of Medicine.

Dr. Charu Kaushic has served in the role of Scientific Director of the CIHR-Institute of Infection and Immunity (III) since July 1, 2018. Dr. Kaushic is also a tenured Full Professor in the Department of Medicine in McMaster University, where she has established her research program and taught for 19 years. She is a member of the McMaster Immunology Research Centre and the Michael G. DeGroote Institute of Infectious Disease Research at the university. She has cross appointments to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology as well as the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster.

In her role as the Scientific Director for CIHR-III, Dr. Kaushic is responsible for making decisions for CIHR strategic investments in the area of infection and immunity, nationally and internationally. She also represents CIHR and the Government of Canada at various national and international forums related to infectious diseases. In this capacity, she serves as Chair of the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R), a global consortium of funders in pandemic preparedness and emergency response research. She is also an Executive Committee Member of the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, a national Task Force mandated to deliver a coordinated sero-survey agenda for the deployment of public health measures and work closely with a range of partners on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine surveillance across Canada. Dr. Kaushic also represents Canada on the Global AMR R&D Hub as well as the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR) Management Board.

Dr. Kaushic's program of research at McMaster is focused on understanding various aspects of host-pathogen interaction as they relate to women's susceptibility and immune responses to the sexually transmitted viral pathogens HIV and herpes virus. The goal of her research program is to develop gender-specific prevention and therapeutic approaches, including vaccines and immunomodulatory interventions, to address the disproportionate burden of STIs on women worldwide, and to provide women with the information and choices to make informed decisions regarding their reproductive health. Her research program covers a broad spectrum from basic research to clinical and translational projects. She has worked closely in partnership with African-Caribbean-Black community organizations for more than 15 years.

Dr. Kaushic completed a Master鈥檚 at Delhi University, her PhD at the National Institute of Immunology in New Delhi, before completing post-doctoral training at Dartmouth Medical School, New Hampshire in mucosal immunology. She joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in McMaster University in 2002. Dr. Kaushic has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and reviews in influential journals and books and mentored more than 65 trainees at different levels. She is the past recipient of a Rockefeller Post-Doctoral Award, an OHTN New Investigator Scholarship, CIHR New Investigator Award and an Applied HIV Research Chair Award from the Ontario HIV Treatment Network. She has also received multiple research achievement awards, including the AJRI Senior Investigator Award from American Society of Reproductive Immunology. She was the Principal Investigator of four CIHR grants, including a large team grant, at the time that she joined CIHR.

Dr. Kaushic is an advocate for women's reproductive health and choices and is passionate about encouraging women to pursue careers and leadership roles in STEM fields.

Professor Adam Finn is based in Bristol鈥檚 Children Vaccine Centre where his focus is on infectious diseases and immunology. His particular specialism is on vaccines for children: how they work and, in particular, how immunisation schemes can impact the transmission of infections. Professor Finn leads the Bristol COVID Emergency Research Group, UNCOVER, which pools the combined expertise of researchers to understand and combat the many health and societal challenges raised by COVID-19. He also chairs the WHO European Technical Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation and he is a member of the UK Department of Health鈥檚 Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation.

Education
1980 - MSc Medical Sciences and History of Art, University of Cambridge 
1983 - MD Clinical Medicine and Surgery, University of Oxford

Affiliations
Member of the British Society for Immunology
Member of the British Inflammation Research Association 
Member of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases

Accomplishments
2009 - Bill Marshall Award, European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases, 
2010 - Sparks Children鈥檚 Medical Research Charity, Excellence in Medical Research Award, 
2015 - Clinical Excellence Award NHS, UK Dept Health (Gold)

Escolano investigates new vaccination approaches for highly mutating viruses. She received her bachelor’s of science degree from the University of Oviedo, Spain, and University of Turku, Finland, and a master’s degree from Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa, Madrid, and the Genome Research Institute (GRI), Cincinnati, Ohio. She obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research and Autonoma University, Madrid, and completed her postdoctoral training at The Rockefeller University, New York.

Montaner studies the mechanisms of disease in HIV-1 infection and cancer, exploring new strategies to boost the natural function of the immune system in order to combat viral-associated disease or cancer progression.

Montaner obtained his D.V.M., Veterinary Medicine from Kansas State University in 1989 and his D.Phil. in Experimental Pathology from University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K., in 1995. He joined The Wistar Institute in 1995 as an assistant professor and was promoted to professor in 2007.

Sunil Thomas, PhD, is a research professor with the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research, part of Main Line Health. He created a groundbreaking resource for scientists seeking to develop new and better vaccines in the fight against COVID-19 called the COVID-19 Genetic Resource Guide鈥攖he world鈥檚 first compendium of the genetic code and protein structure of SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Thomas specializes in translational research, which applies scientific findings to medical practice. During his career in immunology, he has developed numerous therapeutic and diagnostic techniques and has been awarded several patents for his groundbreaking work. Dr. Thomas modeled the membrane protein (M) of SARS-CoV-2 and showed that it functions as a sugar transporter, and he modeled the transmembrane non-structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2. He is the editor of several books, including a popular two-volume set called Vaccine Design: Methods and Protocols (2016). A fully rewritten and supplemented second edition, consisting of three volumes, was published in 2022.

After completion of medical school and a PhD at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Bhakta joined the UCSF Internal Medicine Residency program. With an undergraduate background in engineering and graduate work on T cell development, he was drawn to pulmonary and critical care medicine early given the combination of physiology and immunology present in this specialty. He also found the challenges in working with patients and families on critical illness rewarding. After completing fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine and a postdoctoral fellowship both at UCSF, Dr. Bhakta joined the faculty in 2013.

Clinical activities:
He attends in the Moffitt-Long Intensive Care Units, sees patients in the Chest Faculty Practice clinic on Parnassus Avenue where he also supervises fellows in their outpatient practice, and interprets pulmonary function tests as an attending in the Adult Pulmonary Function Laboratory, where he is also the Associate Director. He also sees patients in collaboration with the neuromuscular diseases clinic to manage respiratory systems and respiratory failure.

Research activities:
Research is another important and personally rewarding part of his career. He leads human trials to obtain clinical data and tissue samples to understand the molecular basis for variations in the presentation of asthma. His other work advances the application of pulmonary function testing. Through his experience in programming and quantitative modeling, he is able to work with genomic and detailed pulmonary function data. His research activities not only contribute to the scientific and medical communities, but also synergize with his delivery of evidence-based, patient-centered medicine.

Teaching activities:
He finds that his clinical and research activities enhance his performance as an educator. He is the Director of Education of the UCSF Adult Pulmonary Function Laboratory, where he oversees the education of MD pulmonary and critical care fellows in pulmonary physiology. In addition to this responsibility for the curriculum, he gives lectures and undertakes one-on-one teaching with fellows while interpreting tests. He gives recurring lectures to students, residents, and fellows, and engages in bedside teaching when attending in the Intensive Care Units. He is a site director and Coach in the Pulmonary Fellowship Training Program. To stay current, he participates in manuscript reviews for journals and has authored book chapters on asthma phenotypes, asthma exacerbations, and pulmonary function testing.

Professional Activities:
As a member of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Pulmonary Function Testing (PFT) Committee, he is committed to disseminating best practices for pulmonary function testing through technical standards and guidelines. He is co-chairing an update to the ATS/ERS lung volumes measurement technical standard. He also co-chaired an ATS Workshop to address the use of race/ethnicity in PFT interpretation.

Dr. Brentjens obtained an MD/PhD (microbiology) from SUNY Buffalo, completed a residency in medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, and a medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). As a medical oncology fellow during his training at MSKCC, Dr. Brentjens initiated the initial pre-clinical studies demonstrating the potential clinical application of autologous T-cells genetically modified to target the CD19 antigen through the retroviral gene transfer of artificial T-cell receptors termed chimeric antigen receptors (CARs). Following the completion of his medical oncology training, Dr. Brentjens became the principal investigator of his own laboratory. As a PI, Dr. Brentjens successfully translated these studies to the clinical setting treating patients with relapsed CD19+ tumors including chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL). Ongoing pre-clinical research in the laboratory is focused on the further development of CAR modified T-cells designed to overcome the hostile immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment through the generation of “armored CAR T-cells” currently being translated to the clinical setting as second-generation CAR modified T-cell clinical trials. Additionally, work in the Brentjens’ lab has expanded this CAR technology to target additional tumor antigens expressed on other malignancies including solid tumors. Positions Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Deputy Director Professor of Oncology Chair, Department of Medicine Department of Immunology The Katherine Anne Gioia Endowed Chair in Cancer Medicine Jacobs School Of Medicine And Biomedical Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo Professor of Medicine Background Education and Training: 1996 - MD - The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 1996 - PhD - Microbiology and Immunology, The State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 1989 - BA - History, Davidson College, Davidson, NC Residency: 1996–1998 - Intern/Resident, Department of Internal Medicine, Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, CT Fellowship: 1998–2002 - Hematology and Oncology, Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 1998–2002 - Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC), New York, NY Board Certification: American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), Medical Oncology 2019-2021 - NYS DOH Cert. of Qualification (Cellular Immunology) Professional Memberships: 2018–present - Member, American Society of Bone Marrow Transplant (ASBMT) 2016-present - Member, American Society of Hematology (ASH) Media Experts Subcommittee 2016–present - Member, European Academy for Tumor Immunology 2015–present - Member, American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) 2014–present - Member, International Society for Cellular Therapy (ISCT) 2015–present - Member, Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2013–present - Member Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO) 2015–present - Member, European Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT) 2015–present - Member, European Hematology Association (EHA) 2015–present - Member, American Association of Immunologists (AAI) 2015–present - Member, European Society for Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT) 2014–present - Member, Interurban Clinical Club 2011-present - American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2009-present - Member, New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) 2002-present - Member, International Society of Analytical Cytology (ISAC) 2002-present - Member, American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT formerly ASGT) 2000-present - Member, American Society of Hematology (ASH) 1999-present - Member, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 1997-present - Member, American College of Physicians (ACP) 1991-1995 - Member, American Society of Microbiology Honors & Awards: 2014 - NY Intellectual Property Law Association Inventor of the Year Award, New York Intellectual Property Law Association 2014 - Emerald Foundation Outstanding Investigator Award, Emerald Foundation 2014 - Distinguished Lecturer Award, Society of Hematological Oncology 2013 - Sir William Osler Young Investigator Award, Interurban Club 2009 - Outstanding New Investigator Award, American Society of Gene Therapy 2006-2011 - Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators Award, Damon Runyon 2005-2008 - Amgen Career Development Award, Amgen 2004 - Clinical Scientist Development, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 2001 - Doris Duke Fellows Award Recipient for Translational Research, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 2000-2002 - Cure for Lymphoma (CFL) Research Grant Award Recipient, Cure for Lymphoma Foundation

Assistant Professor of Oncology
Department of Immunology
Education and Training:
2013 - Ph.D. - Biological Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo
Professional Memberships:
The American Association of Immunologists
Radiation Research Society
American Urological Association
Society for Basic Urologic Research
Honors & Awards:
2021 - Chair, Radiation and Anti-tumor Immunity Session, Radiation Research Society
2019 - Chair, Understanding Immune Responses to Cancer, Upstate NY Immunology Conference
2018 - Early Career Investigator Travel Award, Radiation Research Society
2018 - Chair, Cell Therapies Session, Translational Research Cancer Centers Consortium
2014 - Best Poster, Northeastern Section of the American Urological Association
2013 - Travel award, Midwest Melanoma Partnership
2012 - The American Association of Immunologists Young Investigators Award, Upstate New York Immunology Conference
2012 - Junior Investigator Award, Translational Research Cancer Centers Consortium Meeting
2011 - 1st Place New Investigator Travel Award, Society for Thermal Medicine
Research
Research Overview:
The goal of my laboratory is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that limit renal cell carcinoma patient responses to immunotherapy. The laboratory鈥檚 translational studies are concentrated on enhancing anti-tumor immunity through improved myeloid cell function and cytolytic T cell activity within renal cell carcinoma. Our laboratory鈥檚 findings from a pilot trial in metastatic renal cell carcinoma combining high-dose radiation of kidney tumors with surgical resection, provide a glimpse into the immune activating effects of radiation in human cancer. The laboratory鈥檚 most recent studies performed in collaboration with Dr. Scott Abrams shed light on the role key transcription factors at play in macrophage behavior and patient outcome.


Publications
Chow J, Hoffend NC, Abrams SI, Schwaab T, Singh AK, Muhitch JB. Radiation induces dynamic changes to the T cell repertoire in renal cell carcinoma patients. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Sep 8;. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2001933117. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 32900949.
Muhitch JB, Hoffend NC, Azabdaftari G, Miller A, Bshara W, Morrison CD, Schwaab T, Abrams SO. Tumor-associated macrophage expression of interferon regulatory Factor-8 (IRF8) is a predictor of progression and patient survival in renal cell carcinoma. J Immunther Cancer. 2019; 7: 155.
Singh AK, Winslow T, Habiby Kermany M, Goritz V, Heit L, Miller A, Hoffend NC, Stein LC, Kumaraswamy LK, Warren GW, Bshara W, Odunsi KO, Matsuzaki J, Abrams SI, Schwaab T, Muhitch JB. A pilot study of stereotactic body radiation therapy combined with cytoreductive nephrectomy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Clin Cancer Res. 2017; 23: 5055-5065.
Ku A, Muhitch JB, Diehl M, Abrams SI, Ostrand-Rosenberg S, Evans SS. Myeloid-derived suppressor cell-mediated downregulation of L-selectin limits T cell trafficking in lymph nodes which can be alleviated by systemic thermal therapy. eLife. 2016; 5:e17375.
Battaglia S and Muhitch JB. Unmasking targets of antitumor immunity via high-throughput antigen profiling. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2016; 42: 92-97.
Fisher D, Muhitch JB, Kim M, Doyen K, Bogner P, Evans SS, Skitzki J. Intraoperative intravital microscopy permits the study of human tumour vessels. Nat Commun. 2016; 7: 10684.
Mikucki M, Fisher D, Matsuzaki J, Skitzki JJ, Gaulin N, Muhitch JB, Frelinger J, Odunsi K, Gajewski T, Luster A, Evans SS. Non-redundant requirement for CXCR3 signalling during tumoricical T-cell trafficking across tumour vascular checkpoints. Nat Commun. 2015; 6: 7458.
Muhitch JB and Schwaab T. High-dose interleukin-2 (IL-2) for metastatic renal cell carcinoma: can the first anti-tumor immunotherapy be reinvented? Immunotherapy. 2014; Sep 6; (9): 955-958.

LJI Associate Professor Sonia Sharma, Ph.D., is an expert in using unbiased, genome-scale approaches to unravel innate immunity, the body’s early immune response to microbial pathogens and neoplastic cells. Innate immunity has also been implicated as a common causal factor in many inflammatory, allergic and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Sharma integrates cutting-edge genetics, biochemistry, cell biology, computational and translational approaches to define the key genetic mechanisms regulating cellular innate immunity and determine how they impact human health and disease.
Dr. Sharma has an outstanding record of research accomplishments, including high impact discoveries published in top scientific journals. Her work has made her an internationally recognized expert in the use of high throughput, genome scale approaches, in particular RNA interference and CRISPR/Cas9, to dissect complex cellular signaling pathways and questions of immunological relevance. Her use of these technologies is a powerful tool that can be applied to any cellular pathway or disease process.
Dr. Sharma also directs the La Jolla Institute for Immunology's Sex-Based Differences in the Immune System Initiative, which aims to shed light on why many diseases affect men and women differently.

Dr. Tal Einav’s accomplishments included the development of sophisticated computational methods to understand viral behavior and predict how individuals react to vaccination or infection. This research earned Einav a prestigious Damon Runyon Quantitative Biology Fellowship and emphasized the importance of pursuing machine learning to analyze big data in immunology.
“We have these tremendous datasets that we’re just barely tapping into,” says Einav. These data allow Einav to understand the immune response in different contexts, from the young to the elderly, from healthy people to individuals who are immunocompromised. All with the goal to discover key patterns that let us understand and harness our immunity. Einav’s work has already demonstrated that blending biophysics and computer science enables researchers to predict the antibody response against new viral variants.
This work paves the way for a fundamentally new form of personalized medicine. For example, Einav imagines tailoring an individualized vaccine strain or dosage based on a patient’s specific antibody repertoire to create a stronger response that lasts for years, if not their entire life.

Dr. Alessandro Sette has devoted more than 35 years of study towards understanding the immune response, measuring immune activity, and developing disease intervention strategies against cancer, autoimmunity, allergy, and infectious diseases. The laboratory is defining in chemical terms the specific structures (epitopes) that the immune system recognizes, and uses this knowledge to measure and understand immune responses.
The Sette lab’s approach uses epitopes as specific probes to define the immune signatures associated with productive/protective immunity versus deficient immunity/immunopathology. This research will improve understanding of how the body successfully battles infection, and conversely, how pathogens escape the immune system, causing the individual to succumb to disease. Because of the laboratory’s success in its study of immune response, Sette and his team believe their research will lead to development of new therapeutic and prophylactic approaches to fighting infectious diseases. In this area, Dr. Sette’s disease focus has shifted over the years from HIV, HBV and HCV to emerging diseases and diseases of potential biodefense concern to, most recently, diseases and pathogens relevant to worldwide global health, including SARS-CoV-2, Dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, malaria, M. tuberculosis, B. pertussis, and shingles. Furthermore, Dr. Sette’s team has adapted the methods and techniques developed in the context of infectious disease to understand the T cell response to common allergens and to discover a cell component in Parkinson’s Disease.
Finally, Dr. Sette has overseen the design and curation efforts of the national Immune Epitope Database (IEDB), a freely available, widely used bioinformatics resource, since its inception in the early 2000s. The IEDB catalogs all epitopes for humans, non-human primates, rodents, and other vertebrates, from allergens, infectious diseases, autoantigens and transplants, and includes epitope prediction tools to accelerate immunology research around the world.

Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, is the Chair of the Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy, the Director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the Director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC).
Dr. Merad is an internationally acclaimed physician-scientist and a leader in the fields of dendritic cell and macrophage biology with a focus on their contribution to human diseases. Dr. Merad identified the tissue resident  macrophage lineage and revealed its distinct role in organ physiology and pathophysiology. She established the contribution of this macrophage lineage to cancer progression and inflammatory diseases and is now working on the development of novel macrophage-targeted therapies for these conditions. In addition to her work on macrophages, Dr. Merad is known for her work on dendritic cells, a group of cells that control adaptive immunity. She identified a new subset of dendritic cells, which is now considered a key target of antiviral and antitumor immunity.
Dr. Merad leads the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine (PrIISM) to bring immunology discoveries to the clinic. PrIISM integrates immunological research programs with synergistic expertise in biology, medicine, technology, physics, mathematics and computational biology to enhance our understanding of human immunology. She also founded the Human Immune Monitoring Center at Mount Sinai, one of the world’s most sophisticated research centers, which uses cutting-edge single-cell technology to understand the contribution of immune cells to major human diseases or treatment responses.
Dr. Merad has authored more than 200 primary papers and reviews in high profile journals. Her work has been cited several thousand times. She receives generous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her research on innate immunity and their contribution to human disease, and belongs to several NIH consortia. She is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the recipient of the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology. She is the President-elect of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). In 2020, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her contributions to the field of immunology.
Please visit Dr. Merad's Lab website: