Reza Abdi
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Drugs that suppress the immune system can stop the body from attacking transplanted organs or its own insulin-making cells. But they act throughout the body, so the high doses needed often cause infections, cancer and metabolic problems.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
transplant immunology
alloimmunity
transplant tolerance
- Grants
- 4 known grants, through May 2031
What they work on
- Optimize the stability, binding and body distribution of nanoparticles carrying an antibody against PNAd, a molecule found only on high endothelial venules, in NOD mice that develop type 1 diabetes.
- Test whether delivering anti-CD3, an antibody that dampens T cells, with HEV-targeted nanoparticles reverses autoimmune diabetes in NOD mice, and identify the immune mechanisms involved.
- Test whether the optimized HEV-targeted nanoparticles bind pancreatic lymph nodes and pancreas tissue from people with type 1 diabetes.
- Develop nanoparticles and antibody-drug conjugates that deliver immune drugs to draining lymph nodes and heart grafts, and test whether they prolong graft survival in mouse heart transplant models.
- Use immune profiling and imaging to track T cell trafficking and drug payloads in tissue, to explain how targeted delivery prevents heart transplant rejection.
- Determine how LIGHT made by CD4+ T cells and dendritic cells, acting through its receptor HVEM, turns lymph node fibroblastic reticular cells into inflammatory myofibroblasts that promote rejection, using conditional knockout mice.
- Test how CXCL12-high fibroblastic reticular cells suppress rejection, and whether delivering CXCL12 nanoparticles or these cells to lymph nodes establishes tolerance in mouse heart transplant models.
More about the research
Many harmful immune responses are launched in lymph nodes, the small organs where T cells, immune cells that recognize specific targets, are trained and activated. The lab's work asks two linked questions. Can immune drugs be delivered directly to the lymph nodes and diseased tissue, so smaller doses work better? And can the lymph node's own support cells be reprogrammed to favor tolerance, a state in which the immune system accepts a transplant? The projects cover type 1 diabetes and heart transplantation.
Why it matters
People with type 1 diabetes and heart transplant recipients depend on immune-suppressing drugs that can cause serious infections, cancer and metabolic disease. Delivering these drugs directly to lymph nodes and target tissues could let lower doses work better with fewer side effects. Reprogramming lymph node support cells could point to new ways to help transplanted organs be accepted long term. The team also tests its targeting approach on human T1D tissue.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Mandy J Mcgeachy
Cornell University, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how the interaction between PIP5K1a, an enzyme making the nuclear lipid PIP2, and ARS2, an mRNA cap-binding protein, is regulated as Th17 cells differentiate, using primary human T cells and CD28-humanized CD28A210P mice.
Sana D Karam
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how immune checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-L1 drugs act on PD-1-expressing regulatory T cells and their STAT3 signaling during radiation therapy, using genetically engineered mice and samples from HNSCC clinical trials.
Mia Smith
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how insulin-binding BND2 B cells escape anergy, the normal switched-off state that prevents self-attack, and become activated in young-onset type 1 diabetes.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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