Interferon (IFN)-λ Takes the Helm: Immunomodulatory Roles of Type III IFNs

Interferon (IFN)-λ Takes the Helm: Immunomodulatory Roles of Type III IFNs

Speaker: Ivan Zanoni, Principal investigatorAssistant Professor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Speaker profile: My laboratory studies innate immune cell biology, with the goal of understanding the earliest events that initiate immunity to infection, or drive the development of immune-mediated diseases. My primary research is centred on the study of Pattern Recognition Receptor (PRR) signalling pathways, which initiate all immune responses and activate a network of transcription factors that orchestrate the inflammatory response. The organizing principles that govern PRR signaling are largely unknown, yet elucidating them is imperative for answering fundamental questions about the pathophysiological development of the inflammatory process. We seek to understand the events that initiate protective immunity in response to infection (to bacteria, i.e., Escherichia coli, and also to fungi, i.e., Candida albicans) and tissue injury, or that drive the development of inflammation-mediated diseases such as atherosclerosis or Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBDs). To this end, we scrutinize the innate immune cell biology of dendritic cells, macrophages and neutrophils, with a primary focus on unravelling the PRR signalling pathways that are triggered during the inflammatory process. Our current strategy for achieving these goals is to integrate findings derived from a combination of in vitro signalling studies and in vivo murine models, apply this information to refine our hypotheses, and create models that can explain - and predict - the pathophysiology of inflammation in humans