Bio

Kristin Abraham is a NIH NIDDK Program Director in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases. Her interests are the role of the immune response in metabolic dysfunction and type 2 Diabetes, and projects that develop and validate the utility of new animal models for basic and preclinical research in diabetes, endocrinology and metabolic diseases.

Bio

Mark Anderson is an Endocrinologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. His research focuses on examining the genetic control of autoimmune diseases to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms by which immune tolerance is broken. Current studies in the lab are directed at further understanding the relative contribution of specialized Aire-expressing cells to immune tolerance in multiple autoimmune disease models.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_manderson?hilite=Mark+S.+Anderson

Projects

• Modeling Autoimmune Pathogenesis and Beta Cell Destruction by T1D Immune Systems
• Using Human Stem Cell-derived Thymic Epithelium to Remodel T1D Immune Tolerance

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Mark+S.+Anderson

Bio

Guillermo Arreaza-Rubin is a NIH NIDDK Program Director in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases. His interests are in diabetes and endocrine disease bioengineering and glucose sensing.

Bio

Jeffrey Bluestone is a Professor of Metabolism and Endocrinology at University of California, San Francisco. He is currently serving as the president and CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. His current research focuses on the understanding Tregs has been discussed as an avenue to further developments in the treatment Type 1 Diabetes.

Projects

• Therapeutic Targeting of the Human Islet Environment
• Using Human Stem Cell-derived Thymic Epithelium to Remodel T1D Immune Tolerance

Investigator Contributed Resources:

chttps://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Jeffrey+Bluestone

Bio

Rita Bortell was a Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine. Her research focused on pathogenesis of autoimmune diabetes.

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Rita+Bortell

Bio

Michael Brehm is an Associate Professor of Molecular Medicine and Co-Director of the Humanized Mouse Core Facility at UMass Chan Medical School. He works with these unique animal models of human immune responses to investigate approaches to downregulate as well as activate the human immune system for treatments of type 1 diabetes (T1D) and cancer. Dr. Brehm studies human beta cells from individuals with type 1 diabetes in a real-life setting as they interact with intact T1D immune systems.

Projects

• Models to Study the Synergy between Autoimmunity and Metabolism in T1D
• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Michael+Brehm

HIRN Webinar:

Bio

Xiaojuan (Jan) Chen is an Assistant Professor of Surgical Sciences and the Director of Islet Cell Transplantation at Columbia Center for Translational Immunology. She studies the physiology of human islet alpha and beta cells including their paracrine interaction as part of an effort in understanding the abnormalities in hormonal secretion by islets in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Projects

• Mice with Autologous Human T1D-Derived Immune Systems and iPSC-Derived Beta Cells

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Xiaojuan+Chen

Bio

Jing Chen is an Associate Scientist in the Department of Pathology at the University of Florida. Her research interests are in autoimmune disease, diabetes, immunology of type 1 diabetes, and immunometabolism.

Projects

• Genetic Regulation of Human Beta Cell Destruction

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Jing+Chen

Bio

Remi Creusot is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and an Investigator within the Columbia Center for Translational Immunology and the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center. His research interests revolve around the pathogenesis and prevention of Type 1 Diabetes.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_rcreusot?hilite=Remi+Creusot

Projects

• Modeling Autoimmune Pathogenesis and Beta Cell Destruction by T1D Immune Systems
• Understanding Thymic Epithelial and Hematopoietic Stem Cell-intrinsic Immune Abnormalities Driving T1D in Optimized HIS Mouse Models

Bio

George Daley is Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. His research seeks to translate insights in stem cell biology into improved therapies for genetic and malignant diseases. His laboratory has pioneered human cell culture-based and murine models of human blood disease and cancer.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_gdaley?hilite=George+Daley

Projects

• Models to Study the Synergy between Autoimmunity and Metabolism in T1D
• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=George+Daley

Bio

Nichole Danzl is an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University Medical Center. Her research studies for optimization of the PI mouse model and implements these advances into the basic paired T1D versus Healthy Control comparative experiments. She also leads the in vivo functional testing of ES and iPS derivatives to make human islets and a human thymus from the hematopoietic stem cell donor.

Lab:

https://hirnetwork.org/about/participants#short-profile-megan-sykes-md

Projects

• Mice with Autologous Human T1D-Derived Immune Systems and iPSC-Derived Beta Cells

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Nichole+Danzl

Bio

Dieter Egli Assistant Professor at Columbia University. His research focuses on the generation of therapeutically relevant cells for diabetes. His work has relevance for the use of stem cells to study disease, screen for new drugs, and cell replacement therapy.

Projects

• Mice with Autologous Human T1D-Derived Immune Systems and iPSC-Derived Beta Cells

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Dieter+Egli

Bio

Leonardo Ferreira is a HIRN Emerging Leader Award Recipient and an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina. His research focuses on phenomenon of immune tolerance, his long term goal is to control how the immune system defines self and non-self. Such knowledge will allow the design and development of powerful new engineered immune cell therapies to fight autoimmune disease, cancer, and aging.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator-profile-leonardo-m-r-ferreira

Projects

• Dissecting Chimeric Antigen Receptor Function in Human Regulatory T Cells

Bio

Ronald Gill is a Professor of Surgery and Immunology a the University of Colorado, Denver. His research is focused on nature of immune-mediated injury and tolerance induction to tissue and organ transplants. His primary research activity has been in the area pancreatic islet transplantation as a treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes.

Projects

• Analysis of Human Autoreactive T Cell Receptors in vivo

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Ronald+Gill

Bio

Robin Goland is a Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Columbia University, and directs the patient care and clinical research programs at the Berrie Diabetes Center.

Projects

• Mice with Autologous Human T1D-Derived Immune Systems and iPSC-Derived Beta Cells
• Modeling Autoimmune Pathogenesis and Beta Cell Destruction by T1D Immune Systems

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Robin+Goland

Bio

Peter Gottlieb is a Professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. His laboratory projects are designed to advance basic knowledge of the immune response to autoantigens in type 1 diabetes with the goal of designing immunotherapies for prediabetes and new onset type 1 subjects.

Projects

• Analysis of Human Autoreactive T Cell Receptors in vivo

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Peter+Gottlieb

Bio

Dale Greiner is the Chair in Biomedical Research and Professor of Molecular Medicine and Co-Director of the Diabetes Center of Excellence at UMass Chan Medical School. His research focuses on the development and use of a unique mouse model, engrafted with functional human cells and tissues. His work has generated high interest in the biomedical research community for use as a preclinical model for the investigation of human diabetes, cancer, infectious disease, regenerative medicine and autoimmunity.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_dgreiner?hilite=Dale+Greiner

Projects

• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Dale+Greiner

Bio

Dale Greiner is a Professor of Molecular Medicine and Co-Director of the Diabetes Center of Excellence at UMass Chan Medical School. He has led basic and clinical research exploring the pathophysiology underlying diabetes. Dr. Harlan conducts clinical trials to test new therapies and explain human biology as it relates to diabetes and its treatment. His current research focuses on exploring beta cell biology and the anti-beta cell immune response underlying type 1 diabetes.

Projects

• Models to Study the Synergy between Autoimmunity and Metabolism in T1D
• Human Islet-Infiltrating T cell Biology: Reactivity, Structure and Function
• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=David+Harlan

Bio

Matthias Hebrok is an Professor in Diabetes Research and Director of the Diabetes Center at the University of California, San Francisco. His research focuses on the mechanisms that underlie mammalian pancreas organogenesis and pancreatic diseases, including diabetes and pancreatic cancer. His laboratory has made seminal contributions to our understanding of how embryonic signals control the fetal development of the pancreas and its insulin-producing beta cells. His recent work has implemented the information gained from these studies to generate functional beta cells from human stem cell populations for cell therapy purposes.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_mhebrok?hilite=Matthias+Hebrok

Projects

• Modeling Autoimmune Pathogenesis and Beta Cell Destruction by T1D Immune Systems
• Using Human Stem Cell-derived Thymic Epithelium to Remodel T1D Immune Tolerance

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Matthias+Hebrok

Bio

Eddie James is a HIRN New Investigator and a Principal Investigator at Benaroya Research Institute. His research involves applying tetramers to identify the chemical patters recognized by T cells in desirable protective immune responses directed against viruses (such as tetanus and HPV) and in undesirable destructive immune responses directed against self or therapeutic proteins (including GAD, insulin, and Factor VIII).

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/profile-ejames

Projects

• HLA multimer based characterization of Islet Resident CD4+ T Cells that Target Beta Cell Epitopes and Neo-epitopes

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Eddie+James

HIRN Webinar:

Bio

Alok Joglekar is a Gateway Award Recipient and an Assistant Research Professor of Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh. His research aims to examine the shifting antigenic landscape of anti-tumor T cell responses, determine the fundamental rules of TCR-pMHC interactions, and to investigate novel immunotherapies to autoimmune diseases.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator-profile-alok-joglekar

Projects

• Identification of the Cognate Epitopes of Autoreactive T Cells in T1D

HIRN Webinar:

Bio

John Kappler is a researcher in the Department of Immunology and Genomic Medicine at National Jewish Health. His research is focused in the basic biology of lymphocytes and application of knowledge about lymphocytes to human disease. He and his collaborators discovered the T cell receptor in 1983.

Projects

• Analysis of Human Autoreactive T Cell Receptors in vivo

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=John+Kappler

Bio

Sally Kent is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the UMass Chan Medical School. My research focuses on the area of the autoimmune response in human T1D: in particular, T cell responses in the periphery, in spleen and pancreatic lymph nodes and in islet-infiltrating lymphocytes from subjects with T1D, at-risk for T1D and from controls.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_skent?hilite=Sally+Kent

Projects

• Human Islet-Infiltrating T cell Biology: Reactivity, Structure and Function
• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D
• Characterization of in silico Reconstruction of TCRs for Modeling Autoreactive T cells in T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Sally+Kent

Bio

Bayou Liu is a Gateway Award Recipient and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Utah. His research focuses on autoimmune diseases (e.g., type I diabetes) via understanding self-antigen recognition by the immune system.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator-profile-baoyu-liu

Projects

• On the Plasticity of Beta-cell Antigen Recognition by Diabetogenic CD8 T cells

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Baoyu+Liu

Bio

Rene Maehr is an Associate Professor in Molecular Medicine at UMass Chan Medical School. His research focuses on investigating how normal differentiation of the thymic epithelial cell lineage is regulated, and recapitulating that process with pluripotent stem cells.

Projects

• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Rene+Maehr

Bio

Douglas A. Melton is a Professor at Harvard University, and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His current research interests include pancreatic developmental biology and the directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, particularly in pertinence to type 1 diabetes.

Projects

• Biomarkers for Diabetes using Stem Cell-derived Beta Cells
• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D
• Islet on a Chip

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Douglas+Melton

Bio

Aaron Michels is an Endocrinologist and an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. His research focuses on understanding the underlying immunology of autoimmune disorders with a focus on type 1 diabetes. He discovered that small ‘drug-like’ molecules targeted to diabetes risk HLA molecules can block T cell responses and prevent diabetes onset in spontaneous animal models of autoimmune diabetes.

Projects

• Analysis of Human Autoreactive T Cell Receptors in vivo

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Aaron+Michels

Bio

Maki Nakayama is an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Her research strives to understand the mechanism of initiation of anti-beta cell autoimmunity. She focuses on the tri-molecular complex consisting of antigen, major histocompatibility complex (MHC), and T cell receptor (TCR) that could be a key component for the development of T1D.

Projects

• Analysis of Human Autoreactive T Cell Receptors in vivo
• Characterization of in silico Reconstruction of TCRs for Modeling Autoreactive T cells in T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Maki+Nakayama

Bio

Audrey Parent is a CMAI co-Investigator and a member of the Trans-Network Committee (TNC). She is Assistant Adjunct Professor and her research is focused on immune tolerance with a particular interest in the thymus.

Projects

• Modeling Autoimmune Pathogenesis and Beta Cell Destruction by T1D Immune Systems
• Stem Cell-based Modeling of Type 1 Diabetes to Accelerate Translation of Therapies
• iSTAR Tregs

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Audrey+Parent

Bio

Derrick Rossi was an Associate Professor at the Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology Department at Harvard Medical School and Harvard University. His efforts in the development of cutting-edge technologies and novel therapeutic strategies are at the forefront of regenerative medicine and biotechnology. In 2010, he co-founded Moderna based on discovery that pluripotent stem cells can be transformed and reprogrammed. He is currently retired from all of his Harvard positions in order to focus on his activities as an entrepreneur.

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Derrick+Rossi

Bio

Kole Roybal is an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco. His research utilizes tools of synthetic and chemical biology to enhance the therapeutic potential of engineered immune cells. He also studies the logic of natural cellular signaling systems, and the underlying principles of cellular communication and collective cell behavior during an immune response.

Projects

• Therapeutic Targeting of the Human Islet Environment

Bio

Alexei Savinov is a scientist with Sanford Research and an Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Dakota. His research focuses on studying the underlying mechanisms controlling organ-specific autoimmune diseases such as type I diabetes (T1D).

Projects

• Genetic Regulation of Human Beta Cell Destruction

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Alexei+Savinov

Bio

Leonard Shultz is a Professor at the Jackson Laboratory. His research leverages immunodeficient mouse models for translational studies on human hematopoiesis, immunity, autoimmunity, infectious diseases, diabetes, regenerative medicine and cancer.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_lshultz?hilite=Leonard+Shultz

Projects

• Models to Study the Synergy between Autoimmunity and Metabolism in T1D
• Humanized Mouse Avatars for T1D

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Leonard+Shultz

Bio

Lawrence Stern is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the UMass Chan Medical School. His research interest is in the biochemical processes that underlie cellular recognition and signaling. His lab concentrates on the immune system, because of its intrinsic importance to human health and disease, and because of its treasure of biochemical mechanisms by which cells communicate with their environment and with each other.

Projects

• Human Islet-Infiltrating T cell Biology: Reactivity, Structure and Function

Bio

Megan Sykes is a Professor of Medicine and Professor of Microbiology & Immunology and Surgical Sciences (in Surgery) and Director, Columbia Center for Translational Immunology. Her research focus is on hematopoietic cell transplantation, organ allograft tolerance induction, xenotransplantation tolerance and Type 1 diabetes. The Sykes lab has pioneered minimal conditioning approaches for using HCT to achieve allograft tolerance.

Projects

• Islet-reactive TCR clones in humanized mice generated with type 1 diabetes patient vs. healthy control hematopoietic stem cells
• Mice with Autologous Human T1D-Derived Immune Systems and iPSC-Derived Beta Cells
• Modeling Autoimmune Pathogenesis and Beta Cell Destruction by T1D Immune Systems
• Understanding Thymic Epithelial and Hematopoietic Stem Cell-intrinsic Immune Abnormalities Driving T1D in Optimized HIS Mouse Models

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Megan+Sykes

Bio

Qizhi Tang is a Professor of Transplant Surgery and the Director, Transplantation Research Laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on translating knowledge on mechanisms of immune tolerance into novel therapeutics for treating autoimmune diabetes and preventing transplant rejection.

Projects

• Tregs as Vehicles for Targeted Delivery of Therapeutic Payload to Human Islets
• Stem Cell-based Modeling of Type 1 Diabetes to Accelerate Translation of Therapies
• iSTAR Tregs
• Therapeutic Targeting of the Human Islet Environment

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/qizhi-tang-28a0a412/

Bio

Naohiro Terada is a Professor of Immunology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Florida. His research focuses on pluripotent stem cell biology and its application to clinical translational research, and the mitochondrial ATP transporters.

HIRN Investigator Profile:

https://hirnetwork.org/investigator_profile_nterada?hilite=Naohiro+Terada

Projects

• Genetic Regulation of Human Beta Cell Destruction
• Engineering a Human Microphysiological System for the Characterization of Islet-Immune Interactions

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Naohiro+Terada

Bio

Mark Wallet was a Assistant Professor at the University of Florida and is currently the Vice President, Head of Immunology at Century Therapeutics, His research focuses on the role of innate immune cells, particularly dendritic cells, upon development of T cell-mediated type 1 diabetes.

Projects

• Genetic Regulation of Human Beta Cell Destruction

Investigator Contributed Resources:

https://resourcebrowser.hirnetwork.org/SearchResults/Results/?query=Mark+Wallet