Immune Signaling

Dr. Hurrell’s lab explores the dynamic interplay between nutrition, metabolism, and immune regulation, focusing on how specific nutrients and metabolic pathways influence the development and function of immune cells in both health and disease, particularly asthma and allergy. Utilizing a variety of cutting-edge mouse models, including genetically engineered strains, specialized diets and established asthma models, his team investigates the impact of dietary factors on immune responses and asthma pathogenesis. By applying techniques such as flow cytometry, transcriptomics, and metabolomics to profile immune cell populations and their metabolic states, the lab aims to identify innovative dietary strategies that can modulate immune function and improve lung health.

Research Interests: As a cellular microbiologist, my research focuses on leveraging insights from pathogen studies to deepen our understanding of host cellular processes. My lab's primary aim is to uncover the virulence mechanisms driving Pseudomonas aeruginosa pathogenesis in wound infections, as well as the eukaryotic host responses designed to control these infections. We also utilize bacterial toxins as molecular tools to explore key mammalian cellular processes, including cell cycle regulation, cytokinesis, programmed cell death (apoptosis), and apoptotic compensatory proliferation signaling. A particular area of interest for us is the innate immune dysregulation that makes diabetic wounds susceptible to infection and impairs healing. In addition, we have identified critical innate immune pathways that recognize P. aeruginosa and investigated how this pathogen suppresses these immune responses. Additionally, we explore the use of immunomodulators to enhance innate immune responses as a strategy for combating infections at surgical sites.

Research Interests: Our lab studies the interactions of skeletal and hematopoietic cellular lineages in postnatal bones of mice and humans using a stem cell-centric approach. Interrogating skeletal stem cell biology during development, aging and cancer/disease allows us to dissect the cellular niches and molecular signals maintaining hematopoietic stem cells and regulating immune cell output. Our long-term goal is to leverage our discoveries to develop strategies to prevent and target skeletal stem cell-based bone aging and hematopoietic malignancies.

Research Interests: Dr. Snodgrass’s research is focused on understanding how diet and nutritional and metabolic status shape immune function. Active research areas include (1) investigating the impact of diet and stress on cardiovascular risk factors and immune cell function in human subjects, and (2) understanding how gut microbiota and their metabolites, both of which are influenced by diet, contribute to host immunity.

Research Interests: The Tsolis lab utilizes intracellular bacteria, particularly Salmonella, Brucella, and more recently Chlamydia, to study functioning of the host innate immune system as well as how microbial communities at mucosal surfaces protect against infection. One question the lab has been addressing is how host phagocytes detect subversion of their physiology by injected virulence factors of intracellular pathogens, which led to discovery of a new function for NOD1 and NOD2 in sensing endoplasmic reticulum stress induced by Chlamydia and Brucella. The lab’s work on Salmonella has advanced our understanding of how underlying comorbidities prevalent in the developing world, such as malaria and malnutrition, compromise phagocyte functions required for containment of infection to the gastrointestinal tract, thereby increasing susceptibility to disseminated infection. Most recently the lab has focused on animal modeling to generate a model to study typhoid fever, an infection that is strictly restricted to humans.

Research Interests: Dr. Penn’s research focuses on understanding the immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We use cutting-edge techniques including quantitative mass-spectrometry and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to probe the interaction between M. tuberculosis and its host.

Research Interests: Cancer immunotherapy, viral immunology, preclinical modeling.

Research Interests: Research in my lab focuses on how the immune system responds to environmental exposures—air pollution (including wildfire smoke), allergens, respiratory viruses and stress — and how these interactions contribute to chronic airway diseases like asthma and COPD. We are particularly interested in innate lymphoid cells, epithelial collectins (surfactant proteins A and D), and the molecular mechanisms that regulate airway inflammation. We use animal models, human studies, and cutting-edge cellular-molecular approaches to find new therapeutic targets and improve respiratory health. My students are exposed to interdisciplinary research, spanning immunology, lung physiology, environmental health, and translational medicine.

Research Interests: My research is focused on the cell biology of immune cells, with a particular focus on neutrophil chemotaxis and degranulation. We use live-cell imaging, molecular biosensors, and optogenetic tools to study single-cell responses.

Research Interests: Antibody production requires B cell maturation coordinated by changes in transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms of gene expression. The lab studies the transcription factors and RNA binding proteins that drive maturation into antibody secreting plasma cells.