Research Projects
T cell is an important player to establish the protective immune responses
against many infectious diseases. In addition, T cell responses are considered
to be critical for many chronic infections and cancers. Currently, besides
attenuated live vaccines, it is difficult to induce strong T cell responses
by most of the current inactivated vaccines. T cell responses are controlled
by many factors including MHC-TCR interaction, costimulatory molecules,
type of antigen presenting cells (APCs), cytokines, and the location of
the antigen presentation in the lymphoid tissue. In our research group,
we focus on immunological mechanisms of developing/regulating T cell responses
especially from the point of APC/CD4T/CD8T interactions. We’d also like
to develop clinically applicable new A/D type CpG ODNs as an immunomodulator
and a good vaccine adjuvant. We believe that the knowledge of antigen presentation
system and appropriate antigen/adjuvant delivery will enable to develop
safer and more effective T cell vaccines. Our specific research projects
are as follows:
1) Identify new T cell epitopes for diseases including infection, autoimmunity,
and cancer
2) Understand antigen presenting cells/CD4T/CD8T cell interactions, and
their effects on
T cell response development
3) Develop clinically applicable new A/D type CpG ODNs
Memmbers
Taiki Aoshi, M.D., Ph.D. (Specially-Appointed Associate Professor)
Soichiro Kuwabara (Transferring Research Fellow)
Mie Okutani (Transferring Research Fellow)
Yasunari Haseda(Specially Appointed Researcher/Fellow)
Yoshihiko Tanimoto (Specially Appointed Researcher/Fellow)
Meng Jie(Specially Appointed Researcher/Fellow)
Guirong Kanai (Specially Appointed Researcher/Fellow)
Saiko Ito(Administrative Staff)
Recent publications
1) Development of non-aggregating poly-A tailed immunostimulatory A/D-type CpG oligodeoxynucleotides applicable for clinical use. Aoshi T, Haseda Y, Kobiyama K, Narita H, Sato H, Nankai H, Mochizuki S, Sakurai K, Katakai Y, Yasutomi Y, Kuroda E, Coban C, and K. Ishii. Journal of Immunology Research. Volume 2015 (2015), Article ID 316364, http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/316364.
2) CD8α(+) dendritic cells are an obligate cellular entry point for productive infection by Listeria monocytogenes. Edelson BT, Bradstreet TR, Hildner K, Carrero JA, Frederick KE, KC W, Belizaire R, Aoshi T, Schreiber RD, Miller MJ, Murphy TL, Unanue ER, Murphy KM. Immunity. 2011 Aug 26; 35(2):236-48.
3) Plasmacytoid dendritic cells delineate immunogenicity of influenza vaccine subtypes. Koyama S, Aoshi T, Tanimoto T, Kumagai Y, Kobiyama K, Tougan T, Sakurai K, Coban C, Horii T, Akira S, Ishii KJ. Sci Transl Med. 2010 Mar 31; 2(25):25ra24.
more....>>(go to the publications page)