E. Ashley Moseman
Duke University, NC·Microbiology & Immunology
Antibodies are a main defense against infection. But they cannot easily reach every tissue, and on their own they cannot always kill a pathogen.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
immunology
antibodies
plasma cells
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Oct 2029
What they work on
- Determine when antibody-producing plasma cells settle in the olfactory mucosa (the smell-sensing lining of the nose), and how long and where in that tissue they persist after airway infection or vaccination.
- Define how olfactory plasma cells relate to the long-lived plasma cell pool in bone marrow, to understand why vaccines that raise blood antibody levels often fail to protect the nose.
- Test how isotype variants of a monoclonal antibody against Naegleria fowleri surface molecules, by engaging different Fc receptors on immune cells, direct the killing of parasites in the brain.
- Define how combining the antibody's parasite growth-blocking effect with isotype-specific immune attack can clear brain-eating amoeba infection while limiting damage to the brain.
More about the research
This lab studies how antibodies protect two hard-to-reach places, the nose's smell-sensing lining and the brain, and how that protection could be improved through vaccines or antibody therapies.
Why it matters
Learning how antibody-producing cells take up residence in the nasal smell-sensing lining could guide vaccines that better block upper respiratory viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, that infect the nose and can travel toward the brain. For the nearly always fatal brain infection caused by Naegleria fowleri, the antibody work could point to immune-based treatments for patients who now have few effective options.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Geoffrey Hart
University of Minnesota, MN·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether human NK cells, immune cells that kill antibody-coated targets, clear blood-stage Plasmodium in vivo by transferring them with human anti-merozoite antibodies into immunodeficient mice.
Xiaoyang Hua
University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, TX·Microbiology & Immunology
Define the immune mechanisms by which a virus infecting only the nose recruits antigen-presenting cells to the lungs and boosts innate and adaptive lung immunity, a process called nose-lung cross talk.
Weina Sun
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Map when and where antigen-specific IgA- and IgG-secreting B cells arise in mucosa-associated lymphoid tissues of mice after intramuscular mRNA-LNP vaccination and after intranasal Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccination encoding Beta-variant spike.
The school
Duke University: 61 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 417 research doctorates a year.
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