Lab Research Focus
I am interested in studying the interaction between pathogenic bacteria and the host. Since the role of bacterial polysaccharide (PS) capsule is crucial for pathogenesis, we are studying how the immune system responds to the capsular PS antigens using Streptococcus pneumoniae and Neisseria meningitidis, two important human pathogens.
We have elucidated the structure and the diversity of antibodies to PS antigens. We have shown that the existing method for measuring antibodies to pneumococcal capsular PS are inaccurate. We have also investigated the relationship between antibody avidity and its protective function. We have produced short peptides expressing the epitopes of PS antigens and used them to determine how these peptides can elicit anti-PS antibodies and influence the appearance of the immune memory to the original PS antigen. Recently, we found that a PS conjugated to a lipid molecule is T cell dependent but is CD1 independent. CD1 is a previously identified molecule for presenting another type of a PS-lipid conjugate. We are currently determining whether immunity to our PS-lipid molecule involves a novel immuno-regulatory process.
We are applying our study results to improving the design and evaluation of the vaccines against bacteria. We have applied our knowledge of antibody structure and function to improving and standardizing the assays used to evaluate pneumococcal vaccines. My laboratory is serving as the NIH reference laboratory for pneumococcal vaccines. We are currently determining whether peptide mimotopes can be an effective vaccine against N. meningitidis. We are also investigating whether the PS-lipid conjugates can become a new approach to vaccine design.
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