Pittsburgh Steelers Chair in Transplantation
Professor of Surgery, Medicine, and Immunology
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
David M. Rothstein, MD is Professor of Surgery, Immunology, and Medicine and is the Pittsburgh Steelers Chair in Transplantation at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Rothstein is a transplant nephrologist and immunologist whose NIH-funded laboratory studies immunoregulation and tolerance in transplant and autoimune models. His lab is focused on the biology of regulatory and inflammatory B cells in murine models. His lab identified TIM-1 as a broad functional marker for regulatory B cells that utilize IL-10 and other mechanisms of action to dampen immune responses and maintain self-tolerance. His lab also identified TIM-4 as a marker for proinflammatory “effector” B cells. He has extended this work towards translational studies in kidney transplant recipients. His lab demonstrated that the ratio of IL-10/TNFalpha expressed by transitional B cells in peripheral blood is a surrogate for regulatory versus inflammatory B cells and provides an index of immune responsiveness. Kidney transplant recipients with a low ratio have a relative deficiency of regulatory B cells and are at high risk for subsequent rejection and poor outcomes. This biomarker may help clinicians personalize immunosuppression according to imunological risk, rather than current empiric dosing.
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Thursday, June 23, 2022
1:25 PM – 1:50 PM PT
