Immunology

Immunology, the study of the immune system, is intricately connected to infectious diseases. Investigators in this thematic area are studying both innate and adaptive immune system processes and how they influence disease progression and responses to drug and/or vaccine candidates. Topics being investigated include inflammation, autoimmune disease, phenotypic immune variation, correlates of vaccine or drug efficacy, innate immune memory, and immune system modeling.

Highlight Research relating to the specific thematic area:

Faculty:

• Lijuan Yuan studies the pathogenesis and immunity of enteric pathogens and develops novel prophylactics and therapeutics against enteric viruses
• Coy Allen focuses on exploring the importance of pattern recognition receptors for respiratory pathogens.
• Carla Finkielstein’s research offers a critical foundation for the emerging field of chronotherapeutics – the study of time-of-day medicine. This new discipline integrates the cellular and molecular biology of circadian rhythms to inform decision-making about when a therapeutic should be administered to yield the best results.

Student highlights:

• During the height of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Hannah Ivester (Irving Lab) rose to the challenge and worked on a variety of collaborative projects, in addition to her dissertation research, to help improve vaccine development, repurpose therapeutics, test anti-viral surface coatings, maintain unique rodent resources for the research community, and assist other labs with BSL3 research support.
• Charlotte Nyblade (Yuan Lab) is a third-year DVM/PhD candidate studying enteric pathogen prevention, with recent projects including yeast-based probiotics for Clostridioides difficile and dual norovirus/rotavirus vaccines; she has received two CEZAP mini grants to support her research and more recently a BMVS travel award to attend the American Society of Virology annual meeting

Affiliated Faculty:

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