Research Abstract
Our laboratory investigates the regulation of T cell mediated immune responses. One project focuses on functional interactions between endothelium and T lymphocytes. We study how vascular endothelial cells support selective recruitment and activation of different T cell subsets. Recent work focuses on the differential expression among T cell subsets of functional ligands for endothelial selectins. In vivo approaches include studies of peripheral recruitment of adoptively transferred mouse T cells in normal mice and adoptively transferred human T cells in human skin grafted onto SCID mice. A second major project in the laboratory concerns cytokine gene regulation in helper T cell subsets: The aim of this project is to determine the molecular basis for differential cytokine gene expression in helper T cell subsets. Studies are focused on the transcriptional regulation of IL-4 and interferon-gamma gene expression during and after mouse T cell subset differentation.
