Stephanie Coomes
e-mail address: coomeste@umich.edu

Mentor: Bethany Moore, PhD

Research Description

My project focuses on studying adaptive immune defects in the lung following bone marrow transplant (BMT). Patients undergoing autologous BMT are at risk for infectious complications, even late post-transplant, suggesting that the procedure of transplantation leads to immune defects not related to immunosuppressive drug therapy. We have found that even following immune cell reconstitution, mice receiving syngeneic BMT have increased viral burden in the lungs, as compared to non-transplanted control mice, when challenged. This increased susceptibility is associated with an immunosuppressive lung environment that exists prior to infection following BMT, including increased levels of the suppressive cytokine TGFβ and increased numbers of regulatory T cells. We have found that transplanting mice with transgenic bone marrow which contains T cells that are non-responsive to TGFβ leads to a restoration of anti-viral immunity.

Publications

Coomes SM, Wilke CA, Moore, TA, and Moore, BB. Induction of Transforming Growth Factor-β1 Impairs Anti-Viral Immunity in the Lung Following Syngeneic Bone Marrow Transplant (Submitted).

Abstracts

Coomes SM, Wilke, CA, and Moore, BB (2009). Impaired Anti-Viral Immunity Following Syngeneic Bone Marrow Transplant. Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation 15(2, supplement 2). pp. 142.

Coomes SM, Wilke CA, Moore TA, and Moore, BB (2009). Impaired Anti-Viral Immunity Following Syngeneic Bone Marrow Transplant. J. Immunol. 182: 45.7.

Awards