Our survival depends on our ability to clonally expand rare CD4 lymphocytes and instruct them to help effector cells. Two very different types of CD4 T cell response are required for protective immunity. Immunity to intracellular infections like tuberculosis is dependent on priming and expanding inflammatory IFN-␥ –expressing CD4 T cells that acquire the capability to migrate out into the tissu...

The dramatic clinical success of checkpoint inhibitory therapy (anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1) in a small percentage of patients has highlighted the need to identify combination approaches that may increase the frequency of responders. Two immunotherapy modalities that are proposed to synergize both with each other, and with checkpoint inhibitors are therapeutic vaccines and T cell co-stimulators. ...

Leishmania are obligate intracellular parasites that cause a wide spectrum of diseases ranging from cutaneous, mucocutaneous and the visceral kind. Persistence or resolution of leishmaniasis is governed by host immune response. Co-stimulation is an important secondary signal that governs the extent, strength and direction of the immune response that follows. Co-stimulation by CD40, B7 and OX40 ...

Keloids have been classically considered an aberrant wound-healing response, particularly common in Black or Asian populations. There are currently no targeted treatments for keloids due to their elusive pathogenesis. To further support immune-basis hypothesis keloids, we performed global phenotyping of keloid patients (n=27) and controls (n=23), primarily African Americans, using RNA-Seq Olink...