Keynote Speaker
Sarah Gaffen, PhD., Gerald P. Rodnan Professor
President, International Cytokine & Interferon Society (ICIS)
Director of Basic Rheumatology Research
Division of Rheumatology & Clinical Immunology
University of Pittsburgh
“All Things Great & Seventeen: At the Crossroads of IL-17 signaling in autoimmunity versus host defense”
Biography
Dr. Sarah Gaffen is the Gerald P. Rodnan Endowed Professor in the Division of Rheumatology & Clinical Immunology, at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Gaffen did her undergraduate training at Carnegie Mellon University and received her PhD from The University of California, Berkeley under the guidance of National Academy of Science member Dr. Marian Koshland. Dr. Gaffen did postdoctoral work at UC San Francisco and was on the faculty at SUNY Buffalo from 1999-2008, where she initiated her work on defining mechanisms of signaling by the then-enigmatic IL-17 receptor cytokine family. Since 2008 she has been at the University of Pittsburgh, and was honored with the Gerald P. Rodnan Chair in 2015. Dr. Gaffen is one of the pioneers of studies of the signaling functions and structural features of the IL-17 receptor. The Gaffen Lab also works on understanding the basis for immunity to infections and autoimmunity, with a major interest in the mechanisms that underlie oral mucosal immunity and antifungal host defense. Her group was the first to demonstrate a role for IL-17 pathways in immunity to mucosal Candida albicans infections. Additionally, her recent work has uncovered important post-transcriptional pathways that determine IL-17 signaling cascades. Dr. Gaffen has published over 140 papers and Chaired the standing NIH study section “Immunity and Host Defense.” She was awarded the 2020 BioLegend/William E. Paul Award from the International Cytokine & Interferon Society and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the AAAS. Dr. Gaffen has been continually funded by NIH since 2001, and has mentored 13 students to completion of a PhD. Her trainees work all over the world in both academia and industry.
Research Interests
T cell derived cytokines are critical for mediating host defense against infectious disease, but they also mediate disease pathology in autoimmunity. A subset of CD4+ T cells, known as "Th17 cells" based on production of the cytokine IL-17, plays a key role in driving autoimmunity. Conversely, IL-17 and Th17 cells play important roles in fungal immunity, particularly in protection against opportunistic mucosal infections caused by the commensal yeast Candida albicans, first shown by Dr. Gaffen's group. IL-17 and its receptor are unique in structure and sequence from other known cytokines, and the Gaffen lab has been a leader in studying signaling pathways mediated by this this novel family of cytokines. In addition, antibodies against IL-17 and its receptor were recently approved by the FDA to treat autoimmune conditions, particularly psoriasis
The Gaffen lab studies three aspects of IL-17/Th17 cell biology: (1) mechanisms of molecular signal transduction mediated by IL-17 and its receptor (2) means by which IL-17 mediates host defense against mucosal Candida albicans fungal infections, and (3) mechanisms by which dysregulated IL-17/Th17 cells drive pathogenesis of autoimmunity.
Gaffen Lab
SCEP speaker
Kent Hill, PhD., Professor
Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics
University of Los Angeles, California
"Dynein Dragon Boat: Atomic Structure of the Trypanosome Axoneme Illuminates Mechanism of Flagellar Beating in Eukaryotes"
Biography
Professor, Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics Member, Biochemistry, Biophysics & Structural Biology GPB Home Area, California NanoSystems Institute, Cell & Developmental Biology GPB Home Area, Immunity, Microbes & Molecular Pathogenesis GPB Home Area, Microbiology, Immunology & Molecular Genetics.
Hill Faculty Profile and Publications
