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Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
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Richard M.
Locksley,
M.D.
University of California - San Francisco
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Optimizing Immunity to Complex Pathogens In Vivo
This research involves mechanisms that lead to secretion of certain types of
molecules, termed cytokines, that activated lymphocytes make in mediating
protective immunity. Funding from the Ellison Medical Foundation will enable the
establishment of mice engineered to express genetically marked cytokine genes
that allow activated cells to be identified rapidly in a manner that keeps them alive
for further study. In this way, T cells that mediate protective immunity to an array
of pathogens, including protozoa like Leishmania, intestinal worms and bacteria
such as the organism that causes tuberculosis, will be analyzed in order to
characterize markers displayed by protective T cells. Vaccines can then be
evaluated by their capacity to establish similar characteristics as those identified in
protective T cells that arise after natural infection. Such studies will prove useful
not only in characterizing the production of protective T cells after natural infection,
but in providing a system for the surrogate evaluation of vaccine efficacy.
Contact
Dr. Locksley.
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