DC Lab Research

nonself based on predominantly nonself-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), while the ‘adaptive’ immune axis adapts to the nonself molecular determinants. These two work together toward an effective immune response. An effective immune response to an invading pathogen (nonself) leads to protective immunity and a defective response leads to overt infection. On the other hand, an unintended response to the self-entities leads to autoimmune disorders, while a misjudged tolerance to the altered self contributes to tumorigenesis. Our research broadly concentrates on role of innate immune axis in the crossroads of infection, autoimmunity and cancer.

Dendritic cells (DCs) are the innate cells with most of the decision-making responsibilities for an ensuing immune response or tolerance. We try to decipher the governing principles of self-nonself discrimination by the germline-encoded invariant pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) expressed by DCs and how they work in a given clinical context.

As dendritic cells make most of the decisions regarding self-nonself discrimination in the body, they must have overlapping roles in the clinically distinct contexts of infection, autoimmunity and cancer. The goal of our lab is to map the overlapping role DCs play in these clinical contexts and use the knowledge gathered from one context to design novel therapeutic strategies in others.