Harim Tavares Dos Santos
University at Buffalo, NY·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Salivary glands make the saliva that keeps the mouth moist and healthy, and they also need a working immune system to stay protected. In Sjögren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease, uncontrolled inflammation damages these glands and leaves patients with severe, chronic dry mouth.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
- Topics
tuft cells
salivary gland
Sjögren's syndrome
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2028
What they work on
- Map where tuft cells, rare chemosensory cells of the gland lining, are located in salivary gland epithelium and what they do, using advanced microscopy and experiments in living mice.
- Identify the chemosensory machinery of salivary gland tuft cells, including receptor and signaling components, using single-cell RNA sequencing to read the genes active in each cell.
- Test how tuft cells affect innate (first-line) immunity in salivary glands by removing them in a tuft cell ablation mouse model.
- Determine the role of tuft cells in adaptive (targeted) immunity in salivary glands using Sjögren's syndrome-like mouse models and human salivary gland specimens.
More about the research
This project asks whether a rare type of cell in the gland lining, the tuft cell, helps steer immune responses in salivary glands in health and in this disease.
Why it matters
People with Sjögren's syndrome live with chronic dry mouth because inflammation damages their salivary glands. Learning whether tuft cells shape immune activity in these glands could open a new area of salivary gland research. It may also point to new therapeutic targets for Sjögren's syndrome and other salivary gland diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Cuong Q Nguyen
University of Florida, FL·Microbiology & Immunology
Catalog chemically modified peptides in salivary glands from Sjögren's disease mouse models and patients, using ultrasensitive deep proteome profiling with high-resolution proteomics.
Robert Lee
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Physiology
Map how T2R bitter taste receptors in human nasal ciliated cells signal to eNOS, the enzyme that makes nitric oxide, using imaging and biochemistry in primary cells grown at an air-liquid interface.
Kirsten Limesand
University of Arizona, AZ·Physiology
Define the metabolic state and function of T cells, including CD4+CD8+ double-positive T cells, in mouse parotid glands over time after fractionated radiation.
The school
University at Buffalo: 32 labs on PI Pages, $542M a year on research, 316 research doctorates a year.
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