My laboratory seeks to understand the role and development of allergen-specific antibodies in human health and disease. Using human peripheral blood samples, our translational lab has developed several unique approaches to understanding the molecular...
The Wheeler Lab investigates how immune system interactions with the nervous system influence behavior, inflammation, and tissue plasticity in the brain and peripheral organs. Our research spans three major themes:
(1) Immune and nervous system...
My research program aims to uncover how germinal centers (GCs) generate protective antibodies and to define the immunological principles that distinguish effective from ineffective immune responses. While B cells, long considered the main protagonists of...
The Xavier Laboratory, spanning the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, focuses on systematic characterization of genetic variants to understand the regulation of innate and adaptive immunity...
This laboratory's area of research involves studies of autoimmunity in models of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, arthritis and diabetes in the NOD mouse. We are also investigating immune mechanisms in atherosclerosis, models of Alzheimer's...
Our interests focus on the adaptive immune response with respect to those multiple subunit plasma membrane receptors, namely T cell receptors (TCRs) and preTCRs, that recognize peptides bound to MHC molecules (pMHCs). abTCRs specifically bind to "foreign"...
The function of many proteins is regulated by post-translational modifications. One such modification is citrullination, which converts peptidylarginine to peptidylcitrulline. This process is catalyzed by the enzymes peptidylarginine deiminases (PADs)...
A major area of our interest is how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to stress in the form of damage to their genetic material. When cells incur DNA damage, they induce the transcription of genes involved in cell cycle arrest and repair of the damage...
Our goal is to understand the role of neural-immune interactions in pain, host defense, and immunity. It is increasingly clear that microbes and immune cells release mediators that impact the health and function of the nervous system. Neurons also release...
Autoimmune Disease Deconstruction:
We have implemented a disease deconstruction pipeline using single cell and spatial technologies applied to inflamed tissues in humans to discover new cell types, cell states and pathways that mediate autoimmune disease...
