WEHI Director’s Seminar hosted by Professor Ken Smith
 

Professor Donna Farber DFAAI
George H Humphreys, II Professor of Surgical Sciences and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center, USA

Member, WEHI Independent Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB)

Immune aging in tissue compartments

 

Davis Auditorium

Join via SLIDO enter code #WEHIseminar

Including Q&A session

Donna L. Farber, Ph.D. is the George H Humphreys, II Professor of Surgical Sciences (in Surgery) and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Columbia University. The focus of Dr. Farber’s research is on Immune memory and immune responses in tissues. Dr. Farber’s laboratory identified tissue resident memory T cells (TRM) in the lung which mediate optimal protective immunity to respiratory virus infections. These findings led her to establish a major new resource for the study of tissue immunity in humans — involving acquisition of mucosal, lymphoid, and other peripheral tissues from individual organ donors of all ages, and isolation of tissues and cells for analysis of the human immune system in space and time. In analyzing these samples for the past 15 years, Dr. Farber’s group has identified how immune cell subsets are compartmentalized and function throughout the body including a core signature for human TRM and site-specific adaptations in lymphoid and mucosal sites and how antigen-specific T cells are distributed, function, and are clonally related across multiple sites. Her recent work showed how SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 mRNA vaccines generated T and B cell memory maintained across lymphoid organs and lungs and identified memory regulatory T cells (Tregs) that are maintained in lymph nodes. Study of human immune responses across the lifespan has elucidated developmental pathways in tissues of infant and pediatric donors for establishment of mucosal TRM, how γδ T cells are seeded and mature over age, and how lymphoid follicles are activated in mucosal sites in early life. In studies of human aging, her lab has revealed how memory T cells persist and undergo age-associated changes into old age, and that immune cells across lineages exhibit age-associated changes that are site-specific.

Dr. Farber currently is the Director of the Human Tissue immunity and Disease Initiative at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and leads NIH/NIAID-funded Program grants on human immunity, anti-viral responses and is part of the Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC). She led a multi-investigator team to on “Vaccine efficacy and Tissue immunity” funded by the Department of Defense, and was part of the former NIH/NHLBI consortium on human lung aging, and the Chan-Zuckerberg seed network for the human cell atlas. Her research is also supported by the Helmsley Charitable trust and the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub. She has over 200 publications, is a fellow of the AAAS, a distinguished fellow of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), has served on advisory committees for the NIH, AAI, and multiple editorial boards, and currently serves on the AAI council, the governing body of the AAI.

All welcome!