Shelton Wright
University of Washington, WA·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Pneumonia and related lower respiratory tract infections are the most common cause of infection-related death worldwide. A central puzzle is that the immune response in the lung can either clear an infection or damage the tissue it is trying to protect.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
- Topics
pneumonia
lower respiratory tract infection
pulmonary melioidosis
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Determine the role of gamma-delta T cells, mucosa-enriched T cells that respond rapidly like innate immune cells, in driving lung inflammation during pulmonary melioidosis in vivo.
- Compare how human gamma-delta T cells respond to Burkholderia pseudomallei in ex vivo human lung tissue versus in peripheral blood, to test whether the lung environment produces a distinct inflammatory program.
- Characterize gamma-delta T cell activation in patients with early pulmonary melioidosis, testing the hypothesis that resistance depends on these cells producing IL-17, a signal that recruits other immune cells.
- Test whether monocyte function controls age-dependent neutrophil inflammation in the lung, using a murine model of pulmonary infection in juvenile versus adult hosts.
- Define age-dependent immune responses and the contribution of the inflammasome, an intracellular sensor complex that triggers IL-1beta release, in a human lung model of pulmonary melioidosis.
More about the research
Both projects here ask which immune cells tip that balance during severe lung infection, using melioidosis as the model. Melioidosis is a frequently fatal tropical infection caused by the bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei, which grows inside host immune cells; the lung form occurs in about half of cases and doubles the risk of death. Together the two projects follow two sets of early-responding immune cells: gamma-delta T cells, and monocytes with the neutrophils they recruit.
Why it matters
Severe pneumonia is a leading reason people are hospitalized and die worldwide, and current care offers little way to steer the immune response itself. By pinpointing which early immune cells and signals protect the lung versus injure it, including why younger hosts fare better, this work could identify modifiable targets for new treatments and management approaches for severe lung infection, and could inform care for patients with melioidosis, an infection recently acquired within the United States for the first time.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Samithamby Jeyaseelan
Louisiana State University, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how the antioxidant regulator Nrf2 affects survival, bacterial clearance and neutrophil accumulation and function during carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) pneumonia in mice.
Lee Quinton
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Map when and where CD4+ resident memory T cells, immune cells that stay in previously infected lungs, become activated near airways and veins while neutrophils spread through the lung, using imaging and cytometry in mouse pneumonia.
Amariliz Rivera
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Microbiology & Immunology
Compare how tissue-derived and monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages, two lung immune-cell groups with different origins, reduce pathogen burden and protect lung tissue during helminth, fungal and viral infections, using discovery-based and targeted in vitro and in vivo studies.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
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