Christopher Mody

My laboratory has a long-standing interest in the T cell response to opportunistic infections of the lung. Ongoing projects include the immunologic response to Cryptococcus neoformans and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Recently, we have turned our attention to the factors controlling the synthesis and secretion of IL-15 and its role in T cell response.

We have been studying a number of aspects of the human response to Cryptococcus neoformans. We have identified a component of the cell wall of C. neoformans that is responsible for a mitogenic T lymphocyte resonse, and are now studying the mechanism that the mitogen influences the T cell properties to Pseudomonas exoenzyme S, which induces cytokine production and T cell apoptosis. Finally, our studies of the role of IL-15 in T cell responses to C. neoformans led us to studies of the post-translational control of IL-15 secrection.