biography
"Rather than figuring out how to treat disease, I’d like to understand how to prevent it. It would be a wonderful thing if we could stop terrible diseases before they have a chance to do any damage." – Hilde Cheroutre, Ph.D.
Dr. Cheroutre joined LIAI in 1998 and is currently Division Head and Professor in the Division of Developmental Immunology. Dr. Cheroutre's research focuses on the selection, regulation and activation of different classes of T cells, such as regulatory and memory T cells.
Dr. Cheroutre received her Licentiate in Sciences from the State University of Ghent in Belgium in 1978. She received her Ph.D. from the same university in 1984, earning highest honors. That same year, Dr. Cheroutre began her postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In 1988, Dr. Cheroutre began a three-year stint working in the lab of Mitchell Kronenberg, Ph.D., current President and Chief Scientific Officer of LIAI, in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, Los Angeles. From 1991 to 1997, Dr. Cheroutre was co-director of UCLA's Transgenic Mouse Facility.
Dr. Cheroutre has been awarded the NATO postdoctoral fellowship twice, as well as the Markey Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Cancer Research Coordinating Committee Fellowship from the State of California.
research focus
Hilde Cheroutre, Ph.D., and her team are studying the development,
function, and regulation of white blood cells, a type of T lymphocytes.
The laboratory is investigating how the immune system provides
protection at "interfaces," or places where the outside world comes in
contact with the inside of the body, such as skin, lungs, mouth, and
the largest surface of all, the intestine.
Studying how the immune system works in the intestine is of particular
interest because the immune system has to be able to distinguish
pathogenic antigens from harmless food peptides and bacteria. The
laboratory is investigating how the immune system succeeds in
differentiating between the two and what causes the system to fail,
allowing the antigens to invade the body.
The lab's research has been expanded to studying immune memory cells
that resist re-entering pathogens or cancer cells. Tumor cells produce
tumor antigens, which are cell surface proteins that differ from the
proteins expressed by the surrounding normal cells. White blood cells
recognize and destroy these transformed cells. Some of these
tumor-fighting white blood cells go on to become immune memory cells.
These are long-lived cells that activate immediately when they
re-encounter tumor antigens, in the case of metastasis or re-occurrence
of the tumor.
Understanding the function of immune memory T cells will help in the
development and improvement of effective vaccines. At the same time,
the ability to specifically eliminate these cells is a key requirement
in the therapeutic intervention against autoimmune diseases and the
rejection and/or destruction of host tissue following transplantation.
selected publications
Protein kinase C η is required for T cell activation and homeostatic proliferation.
Sci Signal. 2011
Mucosal memory CD8(+) T cells are selected in the periphery by an MHC class I molecule.
Nat Immunol. 2011
Constitutive intestinal NF-κB does not trigger destructive inflammation unless accompanied by MAPK activation. J Exp Med. 2011
The light and dark sides of intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes. Nat Rev Immunol. 2011
Hepatic stellate cells function as regulatory bystanders. J Immunol. 2011
Regulatory T-cell stability and plasticity in mucosal and systemic immune systems. Mucosal Immunol. 2010
Mucosal T cells in gut homeostasis and inflammation. Expert Rev Clin Immunol. 2010
The 2010 Midwinter Conference of Immunologists at Asilomar. Nat Immunol. 2010
The many face-lifts of CD4 T helper cells. Adv Immunol. 2010
HIV vaccination: turning the spotlight on effector memory T cells as mucosal gatekeepers. F1000 Biol Reports 2009
Interleukin 10 acts on regulatory T cells to maintain expression of the transcription factor Foxp3 and suppressive function in mice with colitis. Nat Immunol. 2009
The importance of being earnestly selfish. Nat Immunol. 2009
Intestinal T cells: Facing the mucosal immune dilemma with synergy and diversity. Semin Immunol. 2009
Retinoic acid can directly promote TGF-beta-mediated Foxp3(+) Treg cell conversion of naïve T cells. Immunity. 2009
More stories on Th17 cells. Cell Res. 2009
IL-6 and Stat3 are required for survival of intestinal epithelial cells and development of colitis-associated cancer. Cancer Cell. 2009
From the diet to the nucleus: Vitamin A and TGF-beta join efforts at the mucosal interface of the intestine. Semin Immunol. 2009
Thymus leukemia antigen controls intraepithelial lymphocyte function and inflammatory bowel disease. Proc Natl Acad Sci U.S.A. 2008
Naïve precursor frequencies and MHC binding rather than the degree of epitope diversity shape CD8+ T cell immunodominance. J. Immunol. 2008
Identification of regulatory functions for 4-1BB and 4-1BBL in myelopoiesis and the development of dendritic cells. Nat Immunol. 2008
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