Cristiana Cairo
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Newborns handle microbes that hide inside host cells poorly, and infections remain a leading cause of childhood death, with more than 1.5 million children under five dying of them in 2022. A major reason is that conventional CD4 T cells before and just after birth are tilted toward regulatory and type 2 helper responses, leaving the type 1 helper (Th1) response that clears intracellular pathogens underpowered.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
gamma-delta T cells
Vγ9Vδ2 T cells
innate-like T cells
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2028
What they work on
- Evaluate the phenotypic and functional heterogeneity of Vδ2 T cells at birth and in early life in relation to age, focusing on a PD1-high subset found in cord blood but absent in adults, using CITE-seq and spectral flow cytometry.
- Assess how the composition of Vδ2 T cell subsets at birth affects antimicrobial function at the population level, combining CITE-seq with depletion and transduction experiments on cord blood cells.
- Compare single-cell transcriptional profiles of freshly sorted cord blood Vδ2 cells by CITE-seq to test whether PD1 without CD56 marks cells lacking perforin, the protein used to kill infected cells.
- Compare chromatin accessibility, meaning which DNA regions are open for use, between sorted PD1-positive and PD1-negative cord blood Vδ2 cells using ASAP-seq, an ATAC-seq variant with surface protein profiling.
More about the research
One cell type bucks this pattern: Vγ9Vδ2 T cells, or Vδ2 cells, innate-like human T lymphocytes with no mouse counterpart. They are primed to release Th1 signaling molecules before birth, acquire killing capacity soon after, and respond rapidly to protozoa, bacteria and viruses by sensing microbial cholesterol-pathway intermediates without needing the usual antigen-presentation machinery. Both projects use umbilical cord blood to work out how many functionally distinct kinds of these cells a baby is born with, and what the inhibitory receptor PD1 marks among them.
Why it matters
Infants die of intracellular infections at high rates partly because their conventional helper T cell responses lag behind adults'. Establishing which Vδ2 T cell states a baby is born with, and which of them actually kill infected cells, could show how to recruit these cells for better infant vaccine and infection responses, and may yield biomarkers of higher or lower malaria risk in early life.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Evelien Bunnik
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX·Microbiology & Immunology
Identify which atypical B cell subsets are linked to protection against malaria, using spectral flow cytometry on malaria-experienced children matched for age and exposure but differing in immunity.
Monika Bambouskova
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Define the identity, gene activity programs and developmental path of an unusual IgD-producing B cell group (PRDM1⁺IGHD⁺) in MKD patients, using CITE-seq, B cell receptor sequencing and high-dimensional flow cytometry.
Sara Suliman
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how pre-infection with mouse cytomegalovirus one month before Mycobacterium tuberculosis affects survival, lung pathology and immune cell composition in C57BL/6 mice, using fluorescent reporter strains of both pathogens.
The school
University of Maryland, Baltimore: 23 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 79 research doctorates a year.
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