Immunology

We are interested in understanding the genetic basis for bacterial interactions with other organisms (be they plants, insects, fungi, other bacteria), and on how evolution shapes these interactions. By better understanding the rules and molecules that structure such relationships, we hope to develop new ways to manipulate these interactions (e.g. through the development of specific antimicrobial compounds) or shape their evolutionary dynamics through time.

Dr Tara Carr is a board certified Allergist/Immunologist physician and Associate Professor at the University of Arizona. She is focused on studying the impact of environmental exposures on development and heterogeneity of allergic disease, with an emphasis on asthma. Her highly collaborative lab at Bio5 serves as biorepository for multiple clinical cohorts, and utilizes a broad range of experimental methods to describe the immunological characteristics of asthma and allergic disease.

Dr. Connick is a physician scientist who has dedicated her career to the improvement of health of individuals living with or at risk for HIV-1 infection. Her research ranges from laboratory based investigations of HIV-1 immunopathogenesis to clinical and epidemiological studies of novel immunotherapies and other interventions to improve health outcomes in people living with HIV-1.

Approximately 795,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year, and 400,000 will experience long-term disability. The number of stroke survivors in the population is expected to double by 2025. Currently, treatments for stroke patients are limited to tissue plasminogen activator (TPA), but its use is limited to the first few hours after stroke. Therefore, the goal of our research is to develop new therapeutics that can promote repair and recovery in this rapidly growing population.

Augmenting immune responses to cancer. Reducing relapse and graft versus host disease after hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Michael Kuhns' research program is focused on (i) increasing our basic understanding of how T cell fate decisions are made (e.g. development, activation, differentiation, effector functions), and (ii) increasing their working knowledge of how to manipulate these decisions to direct T cells towards a desired outcome, such as increasing responses to vaccines or tumors, preventing transplant rejection, or attenuating autoimmunity.

Julie Ledford's research focuses on respiratory disease, and genetic and molecular mechanisms of allergic airway diseases in children.

Dr. Powell is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Valley Fever Center for Excellence. His work focuses on the use of animal models to study the host response to both Coccidioides vaccination as well as infection. Dr Powell uses a variety of transgenic mouse models coupled with cellular immunology to dissect these host responses. His particular interest is in the initial recognition steps that allow some hosts to control infection where others do not.

We are studying how tumor cells escape immunosurveillance, a hallmark of cancer, in aggressive lymphomas. MHCII is a protein important for immunosurveillance. We are studying the underlying mechanisms of altered regulation of MHCII in lymphoma cells and its effects on tumor immunosurveillance.