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Shane Crotty, Ph.D., and his team study immunity against infectious
diseases. They investigate how the immune system remembers infections
and vaccines. By remembering infections and vaccines, the body is
protected from becoming infected in the future. Vaccines are one of the
most cost-effective medical treatments in modern civilization and are
responsible for saving millions of lives. Yet, good vaccines are very
difficult to design, and a better understanding of immune memory will
facilitate the ability to make new vaccines.
Another important way in which Dr. Crotty's lab studies immune memory
is by understanding the function of a gene called SH2D1A or SAP. This
gene is mutated in the human genetic disease XLP (X-linked
lymphoproliferative disease). Children affected by this disease are
immunodeficient and usually die from infectious diseases before
reaching adulthood. Dr. Crotty has discovered that the SAP gene plays a
central role in generation of immune memory. Understanding the role of
SAP in greater detail may help XLP patients and may, more broadly,
allow for the design of better human vaccines that take advantage of
SAP's important role in the process of generating immune memory.
Links on the left provide access to Crotty lab papers and Crotty lab protocols.
