Associate Attending
Memorial Sloan Kettering
As the Chief of the Infectious Disease Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, I conduct laboratory research on the pathogenesis and host response to human fungal pathogens (i.e., Aspergillus Candida, and Cryptococcus) and maintain a clinical ID practice that focuses on highly immune compromised patients.
The primary focus of my research program is to decipher the molecular and cellular basis of sterilizing immunity against the ubiquitous mold A. fumigatus, the most common agent of invasive aspergillosis and a significant cause of infectious morbidity and mortality in immune compromised patients. Our efforts rely on innovative, fluorescence-based tools to trace fungal cell uptake and killing by host leukocytes with single event resolution in the lung. Recently, we adapted this technology to monitor programmed cell death (PCD) in fungal cells and discovered that host leukocytes induce apoptosis-like PCD in mold conidia as a mechanism of sterilizing immunity at mucosal surfaces.
A second line of investigation relates to the role of monocytes in innate and adaptive antifungal immunity. To this end, we developed transgenic mouse lines that (a) label monocytes with GFP, (b) enable inducible monocyte ablation, and (c) facilitate conditional gene targeting in monocytes and descendent cells. With these tools, we demonstrated that CCR2+ monocytes form essential antifungal effector cells during respiratory and systemic fungal infection, and initiate pulmonary adaptive CD4 T cell responses by transporting fungal antigen to tissue-draining lymph nodes. In the context of cryptococcosis, the fungus harnesses inflammatory monocytes to subvert sterilizing immunity.
A third focus of investigation centers on the role of endogenous fungal communities in the gut on immune homeostasis during murine graft versus host disease. We are utilizing pharmacologic and genetic tools to manipulate fungal communities and high-throughput sequencing to characterize their composition and diversity in this model and in human samples.
I am/have mentored 10 post-doctoral and clinical fellows, 2 Ph.D. students, and 3 undergraduate students. My trainees have successfully applied for extramural support, including a Life Science Research Foundation and a NIH KO8 Award, and three female trainees have secured faculty positions (C. Fischer, Univ. of Washington; L. Heung, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; N. Shlezinger, Hebrew Univ.). I am the co-Chair Elect of the Gordon Research Conference on the Immunology of Fungal Infections and serve on the Planning Committee for the annual meeting of the Infectious Disease Society of America.
My research efforts have been recognized by a Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Microbiology (2009), by election to Fellow in the Infectious Disease Society of America (2012), and to Member in the American Society of Clinical Investigation (2016). In 2014, I received an Investigator in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases Award from the Burroughs Welcome Fund. I have published 67 peer-reviewed publications (h index = 38; >5,000 citations).
Disclosure: Nothing to disclose
Thursday, October 22, 2020
3:45pm – 5:00pm EDT
Friday, October 23, 2020
2:45pm – 4:00pm EDT
Friday, October 23, 2020
2:45pm – 4:00pm EDT
