Kristin A. Hogquist
University of Minnesota, MN·Microbiology & Immunology
The immune system must attack invaders while leaving the body's own tissues alone. Much of this training happens in the thymus, the organ where T cells mature.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biology
- Topics
thymus
thymic selection
T cell tolerance
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2029
What they work on
- Test whether interferon made in the thymus trains developing T cells to tolerate self-antigens that are switched on by interferon, as happens during inflammation.
- Determine why mice lacking type I and type III interferons have a major defect in thymic selection, the process that sorts useful T cells from self-reactive ones.
- Test whether thymic B cells activated by type III interferon select regulatory T cells (Treg cells) that restrain antibody-producing immune responses.
More about the research
There, developing T cells that react strongly to the body's own molecules (self-antigens) are either removed or turned into regulatory T cells (Treg cells), which calm immune responses. However, some self-antigens appear only temporarily, during inflammation, wound repair or germinal center reactions, where antibody-making B cells mature. It is unclear how T cells learn to tolerate these.
Why it matters
Many human autoimmune diseases are linked to or follow infections. Learning how the thymus teaches T cells to tolerate the body's own molecules made during inflammation could clarify why tolerance fails in autoimmune disease. It may point to new ways to understand or prevent these conditions.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Peter Aidan Savage
University of Chicago, IL·Microbiology & Immunology
Define the biophysical and structural basis by which T cell receptors from regulatory and conventional CD4+ T cells recognize the same self-peptide displayed on MHC class II, testing whether a more centered binding mode increases signaling sensitivity.
Scott McPherson
University of Minnesota, MN·Microbiology & Immunology
Define how retinal microglia, especially the subset that acts as dendritic cells, present retinal self-antigens to T cells and drive autoimmune disease, using R161H mice with transgenic tracking and depletion of dendritic cells and microglia.
Ellen Robey
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Define the molecular links between different branches of T cell receptor (TCR) signaling and the transcription factor network that specifies the CD4 helper fate, guided by a high-resolution single-cell map of T cell development.
The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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