BUMC Research Profile\u00a0<\/b><\/a><\/p>\nMy interests focus on understanding how the immune system interacts with stromal elements to form the specialized structures that orchestrate immunological encounters in lymphoid organs.\u00a0 On a different plane, the barriers to effective quantitation of disease are formidable in some autoimmune diseases especially those with considerable unmet need such as lupus and scleroderma.\u00a0 I am interested in bringing new views onto the human immune system to improve clinical studies.<\/p>\n
Mesenchymal cell differentiation pathways are intimately interwoven with pathological processes e.g. compromised vascular integrity, aberrant tissue remodeling and fibrosis and tumor-stromal interactions.\u00a0\u00a0 In lymphoid organs, the lymphotoxin pathway, a TNF family member, is one mechanism by which both innate and adaptive lymphoid cells communicate with their stromal microenvironments.\u00a0 The maintenance of a differentiated follicular dendritic cell network to scaffold the B cell follicle is a well-studied example of this communication. \u00a0More recently, it is becoming clearer that another network, the fibroblastoid reticular cell network, is a differentiated form of mural cells, e.g. \u00a0pericytes or vascular smooth muscle cells.\u00a0 The precise role of the lymphotoxin pathway in controlling this structure is an area of investigation.\u00a0 As lymph nodes can undergo massive expansion in response to danger following by involution, they form an intriguing model of physiological tissue remodeling.\u00a0 One-approach we are taking addresses whether the control of these cells in lymphoid tissue provides lessons that are applicable to non-lymphoid disease settings such as scleroderma skin and lung.<\/p>\n
The ability to assess drug function in complex immunological diseases can be seriously limited by the quality of the metrics used to quantitate disease.\u00a0 One focus is on a potential new blood test for salivary gland function in Sjogren\u2019s disease.\u00a0 Additionally, there is interest in understanding the origin of the blood RNA interferon signature commonly observed in autoimmune diseases and how this signature may provide insight into the ongoing pathology in lupus, Sjogren\u2019s and scleroderma.\u00a0 The overarching goal is to understand how readily measureable blood parameters such as chemokine levels or various RNA signatures can report on the activity in lymph nodes and the spleen and hence inform on whether the immune system is flaring or smoldering.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Research Professor of Microbiology and Medicine BS, Michigan State University PhD, University of Wisconsin Postdoctoral Training, Biozentrum & University of California San Francisco BUMC Research Profile\u00a0 My interests focus on understanding how the immune system interacts with stromal elements to form the specialized structures that orchestrate immunological encounters in lymphoid organs.\u00a0 On a different plane, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6648,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2024"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6648"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2024"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2989,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2024\/revisions\/2989"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/immunology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"index\"](\"\/immunology\/files\/2013\/11\/index.jpg\")
Research Professor of Microbiology and Medicine<\/h3>\n