Lee Quinton
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Almost everyone breathes in germs that can cause pneumonia, but healthy immune systems usually stop these infections before they turn serious. Pneumonia is still a leading cause of death worldwide, often because it triggers acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a severe lung failure.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
pneumonia
lung infection
acute respiratory distress syndrome
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2027
What they work on
- 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.
- Build a spatial transcriptomic atlas showing how CD4+ T cells in previously infected lungs trigger rapid gene-activity changes across distant lung and immune cells.
- Identify which blood-derived immune cell subsets supply LOX-1-driven tissue protection in the infected mouse lung, using in vivo and ex vivo approaches.
- Test whether the LOX-1 receptor helps alveolar macrophages clear dying cells (efferocytosis) and shift to a calming state, limiting immune-driven lung damage during pneumonia.
- Test whether LOX-1 pushes alveolar neutrophils toward a suppressive, MDSC-like state by changing how they handle lipids, countering infection-induced lung injury.
More about the research
Scientists still do not fully understand which signals in the body protect the lung during infection. Both projects ask how the lung defends itself without destroying its own tissue. One focuses on immune memory from earlier infections; the other focuses on a receptor that limits damage.
Why it matters
Pneumonia is the leading cause of infection-related deaths, and outcomes for patients with ARDS and sepsis have barely improved in decades. Showing how immune memory and the LOX-1 receptor protect the lung could reveal new treatment targets. These could help patients who have pneumonia or ARDS, or who are at risk of developing it.
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.
Jamie Meegan
University of South Alabama, AL·Physiology·Early-career
Test whether cell-free hemoglobin released from fragile red blood cells during sepsis disrupts the lung microvascular endothelial cell barrier by oxidizing low-density lipoprotein to oxidized LDL.
Jay Kolls
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Define the metabolic needs of tissue-resident memory CD4+ T cells in mouse and primate lungs and noses, and test whether these cells need ongoing antigen exposure to survive long term.
The school
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School: 29 labs on PI Pages, $350M a year on research, 55 research doctorates a year.
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