Erica Schmitt
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Some children are born with single-gene defects that make the immune system both too weak and too aggressive. As a result, they can suffer autoimmunity and infections at the same time.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Genetics
- Topics
STAT3 gain-of-function
STAT3 GOF
primary immune regulatory disorders
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Define how STAT3 gain-of-function alters T-cell and B-cell development, polarization, and their interactions, using immunophenotyping and transcriptional analysis in a STAT3 GOF mouse model with viral infection.
- Establish the impact of STAT3 GOF on antigen-specific T-cell responses and mucosal tolerance, using a TCR transgenic mouse system and a viral infection model.
- Determine how STAT3 GOF affects T-cell polarization, including Th1 skewing and regulatory T-cell generation, in patient cells using in vitro assays.
More about the research
These conditions are called primary immune regulatory disorders (PIRD). Many are caused by mutations in the JAK-STAT pathway, a signaling chain that cells use to respond to immune messages. This pathway is also a common drug target. STAT3 gain-of-function (GOF) syndrome is one such disorder. An overactive STAT3 protein causes early autoimmunity that affects many organs. To diagnose and treat these patients well, doctors need to know exactly which cells go wrong and how.
Why it matters
Patients with STAT3 gain-of-function syndrome and related immune regulatory disorders face autoimmunity and infections with few tailored treatment options. Understanding which T-cell pathways go wrong could reveal new biomarkers for diagnosis and new cellular pathways that drugs could target. This could improve diagnosis, treatment, and management decisions for these rare inherited diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joshua Milner
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Genetics
Quantify how existing immune-disease polygenic risk scores and known eQTL relate to disease severity in patient groups with JAK1/STAT3 or PI3 kinase/mTOR pathway disorders.
Xiaoping Zhong
Duke University, NC·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine the roles of SBNO1 and SBNO2, nuclear RNA helicases, in T-cell development and homeostasis using conditional knockout mice and mice carrying a CVID patient-derived Sbno2 mutation.
Kristin A. Hogquist
University of Minnesota, MN·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether interferon made in the thymus trains developing T cells to tolerate self-antigens that are switched on by interferon, as happens during inflammation.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.