Farber Lab

Ongoing Projects

The focus of research the laboratory is on CD4 T cell memory and peripheral T cell differentiation. The success of an adaptive immune response in removing specific pathogens and providing protective immunity against repeat antigen encounters, critically depends on the activation and differentiation of T lymphocytes into effector cells and ultimately, into long-lived memory T cells. An adaptive immune response begins with the activation of naïve T cells with specific antigen, resulting in their activation, proliferation and differentiation to effector T cells that produce myriad cytokines to recruit and activate additional immune cells for antigen clearance. Most of these activated effector T cells subsequently die after a brief lifespan, yet a subset of antigen-specific T cells persists as memory T cells via an unknown mechanism. When reactivated, memory CD4 T cells mediate and coordinate the faster, stronger, and more prolonged memory immune response.

Basic questions regarding the generation of memory T cells, the relationship between effector and memory T cells, mechanisms for the enhanced functional responses of effector and memory cells, and for the perpetuation of memory T cells remain unanswered. Addressing these questions is of fundamental importance to developing novel approaches to generate and boost memory responses in vaccines, and also to abrogate these responses in autoimmune diseases and in responses to transplanted organs. As outlined below, my laboratory is taking a number of cellular immunological, biochemical, molecular and in vivo approaches toward dissecting these key issues.

Click on the links below for further descriptions:

• Biochemical Analysis of Immunological Memory
• Generation & Heterogeneity of Memory CD4 T Cells
• Memory T Cells in Transplantation

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