Immunobiology
Terri Laufer, MD
University of Pennsylvania
Bala Cynwyd, PA, United States
Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose
This session will provide attendees with an understanding for how different T lymphocytes contribute to various aspects of autoimmunity. Advances in T cell biology has led to the identification of distinct subsets of effector T cells residing in the blood, tissues, or both during systemic autoimmunity. Whether the effector T cells in these tissues become activated locally by expressed autoantigens therein remains unclear. The role of autoantigens and the processes leading to T cell activation will be explored.
How the different effector T cell subsets then contribute to different aspects of disease pathology is beginning to be elucidated. In this session, speakers will discuss how antigen modification leads to activation of self-reactive T cells and how different T cell populations underlie the inflammation and pathology in the context of autoimmunity. These talks will illuminate how understanding the role of T cells in autoimmunity can lead to the discovery of potent therapeutics targeting specific T cell subsets.
Speaker: Erika Darrah, PhD – Johns Hopkins University
Speaker: David A. Fox, MD – University of Michigan
Speaker: Margaret Chang, MD, PhD – Boston Children's Hospital
