Stanford Report, May 27, 2009

Fathman receives grant to further study T cells

Garrison Fathman, MD, professor of medicine and associate director of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infectious Disease, will receive $2.2 million over the next five years from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This funding permits the extension of ongoing research in the Fathman laboratory on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of autoimmunity.

Under some circumstances, the immune system inappropriately targets healthy tissues, leading to autoimmune disease such as type-1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis or systemic lupus erythematosus. These disorders are known to involve the malfunctioning of T cells, which are immune cells that patrol the body, inspecting cells for signs of infection or cancer and initiating an immune attack on such altered cells. Normally, proliferation of the patrolling T cells is kept on a tight leash by a class of immune cells called "regulatory T cells."

In further exploring the molecular mechanisms by which this regulation works—or fails to work—Fathman's team will focus on biochemical pathways within the regulated T cells, as opposed to focusing on the more-studied regulatory T cells.