2014 Mescher Scholars

Jeff Babcock

Babcock

Jeff Babcock has had a long-standing interest in the immunosuppressive effects of septicemia on the adaptive immune system. He previously had carried out experiments with Dr. Thomas Griffith, and following his acceptance into this summer research program he again worked with Griffith to investigate the capacity of IL-2/anti-IL-2 or IL-7/anti-IL-7 complexes to promote the clonal expansion of antigen-specific CD4 T cell populations after the development of sepsis-associated lymphopenia.

Modulating Endogenous CD4+ T Cell Restoration Following Sepsis

 

Brendan Coutu

coutu

Prior to entering the summer program Brendan made use of mass spectrometry to investigate the lipidomes of cancer cells. During his summer program, he worked with Dr. Yoji Shimizu to investigate the relationship between tumor-mediate angiogenesis and the accessibility of the tumor to cytotoxic CD8 T cells.

Overcoming Immune Cell Associated Tumor Vasculature Disruption Through Normalizing The Tumor Vasculature in B16 Melanoma Tumors

 

Alyssa Kerber

Alyssa Kerber came to the summer research program with significant past experience in protein chemistry working in a model of cerebral malaria. After completing her work with Dr. Michael Verneris, Alyssa went on to examine the relationship between serum IL-7 levels and NK cell proliferation in patients with hematological malignancies after double umbilical cord blood transplant.

Influence of Cytokines in NK Cell Proliferation After Double Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation

 

Benjamin Manning

manning

An accomplished scientist with a history of mast cell immunology research for his PhD thesis, Benjamin Manning chose to work with Dr. Bruce Blazar during the summer to develop new technologies and procedures that would facilitate the differentiation and survival of therapeutic chimeric antigen-receptor modified CD8 T cells (CARTs) of a TSCM peripheral stem cell phenotype.

Effects of wnt pathway agonist TWS119 on CD8+ T lymphocyte activation and phenotype

 

Patrick Scanlon

As an undergraduate, Patrick Scanlon previously participated in a clinical research trial investigating the capacity of anti-CTLA4 mAb to promote T cell responses to melanoma antigens. This background in tumor immunology led him to a summer research project with Dr. Michael Farrar. They worked together to study the role of IL-17 in the capacity of BCR-ABL peptide-specific Th17 CD4 T cells to control the growth of B acute lymphocytic leukemia in mice.

Characterizing the Immune Response to BCR-ABL+B-ALL

 

If you are interested in learning more about the Summer Medical Student Research Program, or if you are interested in learning more about a particular research project done by one of our Mescher Scholars, please contact the program director Daniel Mueller