Immunology

Photo: Virus infected cell courtesy of Pixabay.com.

The fundamental goal of the research in the Immunology Focus Group is to gain a better understanding of the immune system and how it can be harnessed to benefit human health. Research focuses on understanding mechanisms underlying the host immune response and its contributions to pathology, as well as how the immune system can be manipulated to exert beneficial effects. The faculty trainers in this Focus Group come from a number of departments across campus including the School of Medicine, the School of Veterinary Medicine, the School of Pharmacy, the School of Engineering and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Research in the Immunology Focus Group spans the spectrum from basic to translational and clinical immunology. Studies are performed in fish, rodents, primates and humans, and involve state of the art techniques and cutting edge technology.

Immunology Focus Group research projects include:

• Immunotherapy to treat graft versus host disease and various forms of cancer
• T cell based vaccines for cancer and HIV infection
• Generation of vaccines against pathogenic fungi
• HIV-induced immune disorders
• Mechanisms of immune cell (innate and T cell) memory
• Effects of Zika virus infection during pregnancy
• Gut microbiome alterations induced by gender and route of HIV infection
• Pathophysiology of rheumatoid arthritis
• Contributions of the unfolded protein response to arthritis and brucellosis
• Role of CD8 T cells in acute and chronic viral infections
• Effects of vitamins on autoimmune and neurodegenerative disease
• Extracellular nucleotides as modifiers of the immune response and their contributions to asthma
• Regulation of antigen-specific T regulatory cells and their contribution to allergic inflammation

The following is a link to the Immunology Research Community at the UW-Madison, many of whom are also trainers in the CMB program.

Focus Group Chair Jyoti Watters
Comparative Biosciences Department
Signal transduction and epigenetic regulation of microglial gene transcription and immune function
jjwatters@wisc.edu