Thesis Advisor
Entering Year
Research: Tuberculosis (TB) kills approximately 1.3 million people each year. Novel vaccines are needed to prevent TB infections and improve mortality, but we must improve our understanding of the host adaptive immune response and identify the conditions that elicit the most protective CD4 T cell response.. My research targets CD4 T cell/antigen presenting cell (APC) conjugates in the lungs induced by TB infection to characterize specificity and effector function of responding CD4 T cells. Altogether, I aim to define features unique to protective CD4 T cells and lay the groundwork for identification of optimal antigenic targets for potential TB vaccine candidates.
