Conférence scientifique | Centre de recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine
Conférencière :
Heather Melichar, PhD (invitée pour l'axe Maladies immunitaires et cancers), professeure sous octroi adjointe, Département de médecine, Université de Montréal et chercheuse au Centre de recherche de l'Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont.
Biographie :
Dr. Melichar pursued her doctoral studies in the lab of Dr. Joonsoo Kang at the University of Massachusetts Medical School focusing on the molecular mechanisms influencing ab vs. gd T cell fate decisions. She then moved to the west coast and began a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, with Dr. Ellen Robey where she developed novel platforms to study the development and behaviour of both murine and human T cells in situ. In 2014, Dr. Melichar established her independent research group in Montreal. As an FRQS Junior 1 Scholar and CIHR New Investigator award recipient, Dr. Melichar is currently a researcher at the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Center and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Montreal. Her laboratory is interested in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate the development and function of T cells and uses insights from these studies to improve the efficacy of cellular therapies.
Résumé :
T cells function to eliminate abnormal or infected cells. They distinguish, with incredible specificity, self- from foreign-peptides, and there are multiple regulatory layers in place to prevent the generation and activation of T cells that bind with high affinity to self-antigens. However, interactions between T cells and self-peptide are required for the development of functional T cells in the thymus, their survival in the periphery, and their expansion in lymphopenic environments. These low-affinity interactions do not cause overt T cell activation, but are implicated in the establishment of functional heterogeneity within the T cell compartment. The goal of our lab is to understand how subtle differences in self-reactivity influence T cell development and function. We approach this problem from a cellular perspective, studying how T cells communicate with support cells in the thymic microenvironment throughout their development and how these interactions influence their function in the peripheral lymphoid organs.
