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FRIDAY RESEARCH CONFERENCE LECTURE by Allergy/Immunology

To Be Rescheduled

Lecture Title: TBD

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Melissa A Brown, PhD
Professor of Microbiology-Immunology
Northwestern Medicine

Lecture Title: TBD

Research interests: Mechanisms underlying sex-related differences in autoimmune disease; meningeal inflammation and how it impacts CNS degenerative disease.

Multiple Sclerosis, a CNS inflammatory disease, is the result of dysregulation of normally protective immune responses. In this disease, pathogenic immune cells gain access to the brain and spinal cord and the ensuing inflammation causes damage to myelinated nerves. Our laboratory studies how certain classes of innate immune cells, particularly mast cells and innate lymphoid cells, promote Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a CNS demyelinating disease, regulate these aberrant responses. Using a rodent model of MS, Experimental autoimmune/allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), our work has shown that mast cells in the meninges are activated early in this disease and promote the opening of the blood brain barrier (BBB), vasculature that is relatively impermeable and normally sequesters the CNS from the entry of inflammatory cells. Current studies are focused on understanding how meningeal mast cells influence these events. In the process, we have established a new paradigm for the mast cell mediated inflammation of the meninges in immunity.
A second line of research investigates the basis for sex-determined differences in MS. It is well established that females show a 3:1 higher incidence and distinct disease presentation than men. Using a mouse model of disease that recapitulates this sex dimorphism in susceptibility, we are studying the role of hormones in altering the immune responses that exacerbate disease in females and protect from disease in males.

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Speaker
Steven J Ackerman, PhD
University of Illinoic at Chicago (UIC) 

Research Interests

Transcriptional regulation of hematopoietic (myeloid) development and granulocyte (eosinophil) lineage-specific gene expression. Molecular biology, structural biology (structure-function relationships) and biologic activities of eosinophil-derived enzymes (phospholipases, lysophospholipases), granule cationic proteins/cytotoxins, and galectins as mediators of eosinophil effector function in allergic inflammation, tissue damage and disease pathogenesis. Eosinophil effector functions in inflammation, tissue remodeling, and fibrosis in asthma, allergy, and other eosinophil-associated diseases.

Our research interests center on the molecular biology, biochemistry and hematopoietic development of the human eosinophil leukocyte in health and disease pathogenesis. Ongoing research projects focus on the: (1) transcriptional mechanisms that regulate eosinophil development and lineage-specific gene expression in the process of commitment and terminal differentiation of multipotential myeloid progenitors to the eosinophil lineage, (2) molecular biology, biochemistry and biologic actions of granule and cytosolic enzymes and cationic cytotoxins expressed by eosinophils, and their roles in the effector functions of this granulocyte in disease pathogenesis, (3) structural biology (structure-activity relationships) of eosinophil granule-associated cytotoxins and enzyme mediators of inflammation, (4) cytokine regulation and mechanisms of eosinophil terminal differentiation, activation and secretion, including cytokine-activated signal transduction pathways, and (5) the roles of eosinophils and their mediators in normal tissue remodeling and pathological tissue fibrosis.

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FRIDAY RESEARCH CONFERENCE LECTURE by Allergy/Immunology
Speaker: William A. Muller, MD, PhD                                                             Northwestern University                                                                                  Feinberg School of Medicine                                                                                                                                                                                                               Professor of Pathology
Lecture Title: “Tracing and Controlling the Signaling Pathways for Leukocyte Transendothelial Migration”

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FRIDAY RESEARCH CONFERENCE LECTURE by Jerry Krishnan, MD, PhD
Speaker: TBD
Lecture Title: TBD