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SKI immunologist Gretchen Diehl
The immune system’s main job is identifying things that can make us sick. In the language of immunology, this means distinguishing “self” from “non-self”: The cells of our organs are self, while disease-causing bacteria and viruses are non-self.
But what about the billions of bacteria that live in our guts and provide us with benefits like digesting food and making vitamins? Are they friend or foe?
This isn’t only a philosophical question. An immune system that mistakes our good gut bacteria for an enemy can cause a dangerous type of inflammation in the intestines called colitis. An immune system that looks the other way while gut microbes spill past their assigned borders is equally dangerous. Understanding how the immune system learns to make a brokered peace with its microbial residents, called the microbiota, is therefore an important area of research.
One morning in March, I woke up feeling horrible. Head: pressurized. Limbs: leaden. Nose: runny.
Oh no, I thought, as I lay in bed. I rubbed my eyes. They were … itchy! I got up and went to the bathroom mirror. Red, too!
Thank God, I thought.
Allergies!
I don’t usually get so excited about the onset of my seasonal allergies. Most years, it goes something like this: I wake up feeling sick. I assume it’s a cold. I slouch around self-pityingly and wait for the illness to pass, but a few days later nothing has changed. At which point I start to wonder: Could it be allergies?
Rebecca Delconte
Rebecca Delconte is a postdoctoral fellow working in the lab of immunologist Joseph Sun in the Sloan Kettering Institute. She is the recipient of the 2021-2022 Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at MSK Postdoctoral Fellowship, which will provide two years of financial support.
Dr. Delconte’s research focuses on the metabolic pathways of immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells, which play an important role in controlling cancer. In an interview in March 2021, she spoke about what motivates her as a scientist and how she came to her specific research interests.
When did you know you wanted to be a scientist?
Study may help develop more effective personalized immunotherapy for cancer patients
New research from CU Cancer Center member Jing Hong Wang, MD, PhD, and recent University of Colorado Immunology program graduate Rachel Woolaver, PhD, may help researchers develop more effective personalized immunotherapy for cancer patients.
Working within Wang s specialty of cancer immunology and head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs), the researchers worked to establish a mouse model that would help them understand why some hosts immune systems reject tumors easily, while others have a harder time doing so. Their research was published last week in the
Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.