Autoimmunity

Autoimmune diseases strike over 20 million Americans and are becoming increasingly more common. We are interested in understanding how T cells and B cells become pathologic in autoimmune diseases.  Our ultimate goal is to develop approaches that can reshape the autoimmune repertoire to re-establish immune tolerance. 

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a common systemic inflammatory disease that causes destructive joint damage.  We are interested in the following questions:

1. What are the immune signatures of RA and how do they differ from chronic inflammatory changes driven by infectious etiologies?

2. Do autoreactive T cells respond to commensal bacteria and how they become dysregulated in autoimmune patients? 

3. How do autoreactive T cells alter B cell response to promote autoantibody production?

Type I diabetes

Type I diabetes (T1D) affects 1 out of every 300 children in the United States and results in progressive immune-mediated destruction of insulin secreting beta cells that leads to life-long insulin dependence. Diminished microbial interaction with improved hygiene and antibiotic use has been suggested as a major contributor to the rise of T1D and other autoimmune diseases in the developed world.  We are studying human T cell responses in the intestinal tissue environment, with the goal of understanding how microbial exposures induce abnormal responses against islet autoantigens.