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“It's a perennial race between new infectious diseases arising and society reacting to them, understanding them and defeating them. ”
Alessandro Sette, Ph.D.
Head and Member
Center for Infectious Disease; Allergy & Asthma Research
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biography

cell-bullet1.jpg“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
cell-bullet2.jpgAlessandro 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

cell-bullet3.jpg Characterization of the peptide-binding specificity of the chimpanzee class I alleles A*0301 and A*0401 using a combinatorial peptide library.Immunogenetics. 2007

Automating document classification for the Immune Epitope Database.BMC Bioinformatics. 2007

Chronic lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus infection actively down-regulates CD4+ T cell responses directed against a broad range of epitopes.J Immunol. 2007

A quantitative analysis of the variables affecting the repertoire of T cell specificities recognized after vaccinia virus infection.J 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

Integrating epitope data into the emerging web of biomedical knowledge resources.Nat Rev 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

Protein sequence database for pathogenic arenaviruses.Immunome Res. 2007

Towards a consensus on datasets and evaluation metrics for developing B-cell epitope prediction tools.J Mol Recognit. 2007

Ab and T cell epitopes of influenza A virus, knowledge and opportunities.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007

Immune epitope mapping in the post-genomic era: lessons for vaccine development.Curr Opin Immunol. 2007

Curation of complex, context-dependent immunological data. BMC Bioinformatics. 2006

Detailed characterization of the peptide binding specificity of five common Patr class I MHC molecules.Immunogenetics. 2006

A community resource benchmarking predictions of peptide binding to MHC-I molecules.PLoS Pathog. 2006

CD8+ T-Cell responses to Trypanosoma cruzi are highly focused on strain-variant trans-sialidase epitopes. PLoS Pathog. 2006

Curation of complex, context-dependent immunological data. BMC Bioinformatics. 2006

A community resource benchmarking predictions of peptide binding to MHC-I molecules. PLoS Comput Biol. 2006

Poxvirus CD8+ T-cell determinants and cross-reactivity in BALB/c mice. J Virol. 2006

A consensus epitope prediction approach identifies the breadth of murine T(CD8+)-cell responses to vaccinia virus. Nat Biotechnol. 2006

Improving MHC binding peptide prediction by incorporating binding data of auxiliary MHC molecules. Bioinformatics. 2006

Impact of HLA-B alleles, epitope binding affinity, functional avidity, and viral coinfection on the immunodominance of virus-specific CTL responses. J Immunol. 2006

Predicting population coverage of T-cell epitope-based diagnostics and vaccines. BMC Bioinformatics. 2006

Immunodominance of poxviral-specific CTL in a human trial of recombinant-modified vaccinia Ankara. J Immunol. 2005

Identification of paramyosin T cell epitopes associated with human resistance to Schistosoma mansoni reinfection. Clin Exp Immunol. 2005

The high frequency Indian rhesus macaque MHC class I molecule, Mamu-B*01, does not appear to be involved in CD8+ T lymphocyte responses to SIVmac239. J Immunol. 2005

HLA-A*0201, HLA-A*1101, and HLA-B*0702 Transgenic Mice Recognize Numerous Poxvirus Determinants from a Wide Variety of Viral Gene Products. J Immunol. 2005

HLA class I-restricted responses to vaccinia recognize a broad array of proteins mainly involved in virulence and viral gene regulation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005

Broad repertoire of the CD4+ Th cell response in spontaneously controlled hepatitis C virus infection includes dominant and highly promiscuous epitopes. J Immunol. 2005

A computational resource for the prediction of peptide binding to Indian rhesus macaque MHC class I molecules. Vaccine. 2005

Characterization of the T-cell epitope that causes anti-GBM glomerulonephritis. Kidney Int. 2005

Tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens: a possible avenue for cancer prevention. Immunol Cell Biol. 2005

Classification of A1- and A24-supertype molecules by analysis of their MHC-peptide binding repertoires. Immunogenetics. 2005

Tolerogenic immune responses to novel T-cell epitopes from heat-shock protein 60 in juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Lancet. 2005

Cellular immune selection with hepatitis C virus persistence in humans. J Exp Med. 2005

Generating quantitative models describing the sequence specificity of biological processes with the stabilized matrix method. BMC Bioinformatics. 2003

The design and implementation of the immune epitope database and analysis resource. Immunogenetics. 2005

Automated generation and evaluation of specific MHC binding predictive tools: ARB matrix applications. Immunogenetics. 2005

Identification of multiple HLA-A*0201-restricted cruzipain and FL-160 CD8+ epitopes recognized by T cells from chronically Trypanosoma cruzi-infected patients. Microbes Infect. 2005

A CD8+ T cell heptaepitope minigene vaccine induces protective immunity against Chlamydia pneumoniae. J Immunol. 2005

The majority of currently circulating human immunodeficiency virus type 1 clade B viruses fail to prime cytotoxic T-lymphocyte responses against an otherwise immunodominant HLA-A2-restricted epitope: implications for vaccine design. J Virol. 2005

Discovery and characterization of highly immunogenic and broadly recognized mimics of the HIV-1 CTL epitope Gag77-85. Eur J Immunol. 2005

A roadmap for the immunomics of category A-C pathogens. Immunity. 2005

The immune epitope database and analysis resource: from vision to blueprint. PLoS Biol. 2005

Rationally engineered therapeutic proteins with reduced immunogenicity. J Immunol. 2005

Characterization of the peptide-binding specificity of Mamu-A*11 results in the identification of SIV-derived epitopes and interspecies cross-reactivity. Immunogenetics. 2005

Identification of poxvirus CD8+ T cell determinants to enable rational design and characterization of smallpox vaccines. J Exp Med. 2005

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AWARDS AND HONORS
  • International Immunomics and Immmunogenics Society Award, 2006
  • Named Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, 2003
  • Named Adjunct Professor in the Department of Experimental Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute, 2002
  • ISI highly cited investigator (top 100 in the Immunology category over the 1981-2000. Period), with over 11,000 Citation Index citations, 2001
  • American Liver Foundation Award for Biotechnology Companies, 2000
  • Member of the Kriegler Lecture and Award Selection Committee, 1998
  • 51st Oregon State University Biological Colloquium Award, 1990
  • American Association of Immunologists Investigator Award, 1995
  • Member of A. Geluk Ph.D. thesis graduating committee, University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 2005

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