STANDARDIZED ASSAYS FOR PERSONALIZED IMMUNE RESPONSE MONITORING

Abstract

Standardized Assays for Personalized Immune Response Monitoring

This online seminar provides an overview of research published in Immunity that demonstrates progress in the standardization of assays for personalized immune response monitoring.

Presenter

Matthew Albert

Director of the Department of Immunology; Co-Director and Founder of the Center for Human Immunology at Institut Pasteur; Adjunct Faculty at Cochin Hospital

Matthew Albert, co-director and founder of the Center for Human Immunology at Institut Pasteur, will share findings from the Milieu Interieur Project, a population-based study that aims to identify the genetic and environmental determinants of immune phenotype variance and establish a path towards personalized medicine.

Dr. Albert and colleagues have developed a suite of whole blood, syringe-based assay systems that can be used to reproducibly assess induced innate or adaptive immune responses. By eliminating pre-analytical errors associated with immune monitoring, he and his team have defined the protein signatures induced by: (i) medically relevant bacteria, fungi and viruses; (ii) agonists specific for defined host sensors; (iii) clinically employed cytokines; and (iv) activators of T cell immunity.

Initial results provide healthy donor reference values for induced cytokines and chemokines and indicate that the failure to release interleukin 1 alpha is a common immunological phenotype. Dr. Albert will discuss how observed naturally occurring variation of the immune response may help to explain differential susceptibility to disease or response to therapeutic intervention.

The results of this work indicate that the implementation of a general solution for point-of-care assessment of functional immune responses will support harmonization of clinical studies and data sharing.