The immune system is a decentralized collection of cells across the body that must regulate one another to initiate, carry out, and resolve responses to foreign threats, including infectious pathogens and cancers. Performing detailed longitudinal analyses of immune responses, we aim to identify key inflection points that guide the type of immune response that unfolds. We have recently investigated the metabolic adaptations that take place in T cells as they mount responses to pathogens, identifying a unique transient state with a unique metabolic phenotype that enables T cell proliferation.
We are currently investigating how changes in dendritic cell states guide the nature of T cell responses that are mounted to different types of threats. Other ongoing studies aim to understand how human immune responses take place in the contexts of cancer immunotherapy, acute infection, and organ transplantation. Moreover, our initiative called the ImmunoMicrobiome Project focuses on how the microbiome regulates the immune system over time through its production of immunomodulatory metabolites.
