biography
“New infectious agents originate all the time dating back to the plague in the siege of Athens in the 7th Century to the endemic flu in 1918 that killed 20 million people. For medical science, it’s a perennial race between new infectious diseases coming up and society reacting to them, understanding them and ultimately defeating them.” – Alessandro Sette, Ph.D.
Dr. Sette started at LIAI in 2002 as the Head of the Initiative for
Emerging Diseases and Biodefense. In 2003 he became the Head of the
Division of Translational Immunology. At LIAI, Dr. Sette's research
focuses on the identification of epitopes, working to understand how
vaccines should be constructed. The team's work is heavily focused on
emerging disease threats or bioterror threats, such as SARS, arena
viruses, smallpox and flu viruses. Dr. Sette's group is also leading an
effort to bring a premier collaboration resource to the scientific
community. The NIAID has awarded Dr. Sette a long-term contract to
design and produce a national Immune Epitope Database (IEDB) to aide in
the acceleration of vaccine-development on a global scale.
Dr. Sette received his degree in Biological Sciences from the
University of Roma, Laboratory of Pathology in 1984. In 1984, Dr. Sette
was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the same laboratory. From 1986-1988, he
joined The National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory
Medicine in Denver, in the USA as a post-doctoral fellow.
In 2002, Dr. Sette was named Adjunct Professor in the Department of
Experimental Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, where he is
also Scientific Director of the Rheumatic Diseases Core Center since
2004. In 2003 he was named Adjunct Professor in the department of
Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Sette is a member of numerous grant review panels and a reviewer
for many scientific publications. He is also a member of the editorial
advisory board for Immunogenetics, Human Immunology, Current
Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Current Drugs, and Tissue Antigens.
research focus

Alessandro Sette, Dr. Biol.Sc., and his laboratory study ways to fight
diseases by understanding the immune response, measuring immune
activity, and developing disease intervention strategies against a
number of new and emerging infectious diseases. These include
Influenza, arena viruses, a family of viruses responsible for
hemorrhagic fever and meningitis, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) as well as diseases of renewed interest, such as smallpox,
because of the growing threat of bioterrorism. The laboratory is
defining in chemical terms what murine, non-human primate and human
immune system recognizes and uses this knowledge to measure and
understand anti-pathogen immune responses. This approach is helping
unlock the mysteries of how the body successfully battles infection,
and conversely, how pathogens escape the immune system, causing the
individual to succumb to disease. Form this data, Sette and his team
believe their research will lead to development of new therapeutic and
prophylactic approaches to fighting infectious diseases.
A major focus of the Sette's group is also the design and population of the
Immune Epitope Database,
developed under a NIAID contract. The database allows researchers
around the world to quickly access key information on the way the body
responds to disease-causing agents, especially those that are
responsible for emerging infectious diseases, or that are part of
potential bioterrorist threats. By allowing researchers to share and
analyze data in this unprecedented manner, the database provides an
important tool for accelerating the development and improvement of
vaccines.
selected publications
Meta-analysis of immune epitope data for all Plasmodia: overview and applications for malarial immunobiology and vaccine-related issues. Parasite Immunol. 2009
Correlates of protection efficacy induced by vaccinia virus-specific CD8(+) T-cell epitopes in the murine intranasal challenge model. Eur J Immunol. 2009
HLA class I supertypes: a revised and updated classification. BMC Immunol. 2008
Selective CD4+ T cell help for antibody responses to a large viral pathogen: deterministic linkage of specificities. Immunity. 2008
Dissociation between epitope hierarchy and immunoprevalence in CD8 responses to vaccinia virus western reserve. J Immunol. 2008
Naive precursor frequencies and MHC binding rather than the degree of epitope diversity shape CD8+ T cell immunodominance. J Immunol. 2008
Lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection yields overlapping CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses. J Virol. 2008
Kinetic analysis of a complete poxvirus transcriptome reveals an immediate-early class of genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008
Immunomic Analysis of the Repertoire of T cell Specificities for Influenza A Virus in Humans. J Virol. 2008
Characterization of the peptide-binding specificity of the chimpanzee class I alleles A 0301 and A 0401 using a combinatorial peptide library.
Immunogenetics. 2007
Immune epitope mapping in the post-genomic era: lessons for vaccine development. Curr Opin Immunol. 2007
Cross-presentation of caspase-cleaved apoptotic self antigens in HIV infection. Nat Med. 2007
Integrating epitope data into the emerging web of biomedical knowledge resources. Nat Rev Immunol. 2007
Vaccinia virus-specific CD4+ T cell responses target a set of antigens largely distinct from those targeted by CD8+ T cell responses. J Immunol. 2007
Chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection actively down-regulates CD4+ T cell responses directed against a broad range of epitopes. J Immunol. 2007
The CD8+ T-cell response to lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus involves the L antigen: uncovering new tricks for an old virus. J Virol. 2007
Ab and T cell epitopes of influenza A virus, knowledge and opportunities. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007
A quantitative analysis of the variables affecting the repertoire of T cell specificities recognized after vaccinia virus infection. J Immunol. 2007
A community resource benchmarking predictions of peptide binding to MHC-I molecules. PLoS Comput Biol. 2006
A consensus epitope prediction approach identifies the breadth of murine T(CD8+)-cell responses to vaccinia virus. Nat Biotechnol. 2006
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