Regulation between immune activation and unresponsiveness is crucial in the pathogenesis of cancer, autoimmune disorders and infection. Historically, clinicians and scientists have relied on investigative tools that involve teasing apart individual cells away from their native environment to study their function in a test tube, or obtaining static snapshots of where these cells migrate within the body through examination of fixed tissues under the microscope. While useful tools in uncovering many of the principle processes which govern how cells communicate with one another, these traditional investigative tools cannot fully reconstitute the myriad of environmental cues which the immune cells gather and interpret for their proper function. For one thing, a distinguishing feature of the immune system is its dynamic and migratory capacity of the individual cellular components.
Through advances in technology, scientists are now capable of visualizing how immune cells interact with their neighbors and pathogens in their native environment in real time with single-cell resolution. Our laboratory is among the first in the world to develop the application of this technology to directly visualize immune cell trafficking, migration and interaction in animal models of disease such as cancer and multiple sclerosis.
Our laboratory is interested in applying this and other classical immunological techniques to study various aspects of anti-tumor immune responses, immune – host – pathogen interaction, T cell-mediated memory immunity, and chemokine - receptor biology.
Ongoing projects include:
1) Interrogation molecular signaling crosstalk in immune cells
2) Investigation into factors which influence the dynamic recruitment of T cells and their interactions with tumor microenvironment
3) Imaging dynamic interaction between the brain tissue and pathogenic cells that causes an animal model of multiple sclerosis, acute experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
4) Testing the efficacy of genetically-modified tumor vaccines in the setting of sarcomas and other childhood cancer
5) Developing imaging techniques to interrogate immune cell migration and interactions in tissues such as the bone marrow, lung, kidney, GI track and the skin.
The long-term goal of our laboratory is to translate insights gained from basic investigations of in vivo immunity into rationally designed tumor vaccine and immunotherapeutic clinical trials, with a particular emphasis in the areas of pediatric sarcomas and other solid tumors.