Ulrich H Von Andrian
Harvard University, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Immune cells protect the body only if they reach the right place at the right time. They travel through blood vessels, exit into tissues, and receive signals from their surroundings, including nerves.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
- Topics
immunology
leukocyte trafficking
intravital microscopy
- Grants
- 4 known grants, through May 2031
What they work on
- Determine how nociceptors (pain-sensing nerves) affect the growth and spread of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, using nerve ablation and chemogenetic silencing in orthotopic mouse models.
- Define the molecular signals among bladder tumor cells, nociceptors, monocytes and T cells, including how nerves turn monocytes into immunosuppressive MDSCs.
- Test whether CD130 signaling in vessel-lining cells is needed to form and maintain high endothelial venules (HEV), using conditional knockout mice under normal conditions and in cancer, colitis and arthritis models.
- Identify which IL-6 family cytokines and co-receptors (LIFR, OSMR) drive CD130-dependent HEV formation, and compare their role with the lymphotoxin β pathway.
- Trace the origin and migration routes of three nasal extravascular neutrophil subsets (N1–N3) in mice, using intravital microscopy of the nasal lining.
- Define the functions of each nasal neutrophil subset in tissue maintenance and after pathogens are delivered into the nose.
- Characterize the molecular mechanisms that let CX3CR1-high antiviral CD8 T cells arrest and crawl inside small blood vessels, using multi-photon intravital microscopy.
- Test whether crawling inside vessels lets antiviral T cells survey vessel cells for antigen and shapes how effector and memory T cells develop and function.
More about the research
These projects study how immune cells move and are controlled in living animals. Topics include pain-sensing nerves that may help bladder tumors escape immune attack, the blood vessels that let white blood cells enter lymph nodes, an unusual population of neutrophils lining the nose, and virus-fighting T cells that crawl inside blood vessels. Much of the work uses intravital microscopy, which films cells inside living mice.
Why it matters
Bladder cancer remains a major unmet clinical need, and pain-sensing nerves could become new targets for treating or preventing it. Ways to promote or block HEV formation could help immunotherapy reach tumors or calm chronic inflammation such as inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Knowing which immune cells guard the nose could inform nasal vaccines and care for allergies and respiratory infections. Insight into crawling T cells could clarify how memory against viruses forms.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Masanobu Komatsu
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether the signaling protein R-Ras in blood vessel cells drives the formation of high endothelial venules in tumors, using mice that lack or overproduce endothelial R-Ras in mammary tumor and melanoma models.
Andrew Dudley
University of Virginia, VA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether deleting Dnmt1, a DNA-methylating enzyme that silences genes, in blood vessel lining cells produces durable melanoma control by promoting dendritic cell trafficking to tumor-draining lymph nodes and recruiting CD4+ T cells, using genetic mouse models and immune profiling by flow cytometry.
Reza Abdi
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
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.
The school
Harvard University: 42 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 712 research doctorates a year.
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