Description:

The Lurie Cancer Center Basic Research Seminar Series presents:

Coordination of the Immune Response to Transfused Red Blood Cells: Why are RBC’s Sometimes Immunogenic?

Stephanie Eisenbarth, MD, PhD
Director, Center for Human Immunobiology
Chief of Allergy and Immunology in the Department of Medicine
Roy and Elaine Patterson Professor of Medicine
Professor of Medicine (Allergy and Immunology) and Pathology
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Dr. Eisenbarth’s laboratory focuses on how dendritic cells, B cells and T cells interact to induce tailored adaptive immune responses. The work spans how this triad is operational for transfused red blood cells (RBCs) to become immunogenic. A recent publication arising from the lab showed that inflammatory cytokine response, dendritic cell activation and migration, and the subsequent alloantibody response to transfused RBCs require MyD88, suggesting specific and limited pattern recognition proteins are responsible for sensing RBCs and triggering alloimmunization. As many cancer patients become anemic and require blood transfusions, understanding the underlying biology behind RBCs becoming immunogenic has direct applications to cancer patient care and outcomes.