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. From 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
Polyfunctional CD4+ T cell responses to a set of pathogenic arenaviruses provide broad population coverage. Immunome Res. 2010
Identification of broad binding class I HLA supertype epitopes to provide universal coverage of influenza A virus. Hum Immunol. 2010
Design and utilization of epitope-based databases and predictive tools. Immunogenetics. 2010
Five HLA-DP molecules frequently expressed in the worldwide human population share a common HLA supertypic binding specificity. J Immunol. 2010
The immune epitope database 2.0. Nucleic Acids Res. 2010
Definition of epitopes and antigens recognized by vaccinia specific immune responses: their conservation in variola virus sequences, and use as a model system to study complex pathogens. Vaccine. 2009
A multivalent and cross-protective vaccine strategy against arenaviruses associated with human disease. PLoS Path. 2009
Pre-existing immunity against swine-origin H1N1 influenza viruses in the general human population. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA. 2009
Classification of the universe of immune epitope literature: representation and knowledge gaps. PLoS One. 2009
Of mice and humans: how good are HLA transgenic mice as a model of human immune responses? Immunome Res. 2009
Two MHC class I molecules associated with elite control of immunodeficiency virus replication, Mamu-B*08 and HLA-B*2705, bind peptides with sequence similarity. J Immunol. 2009
A protective role for dengue virus-specific CD8+ T cells. J 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
Meta-analysis of immune epitope data for all Plasmodia: overview and
applications for malarial immunobiology and vaccine-related issues.
Parasite Immunol. 2009
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