Immune Response

BIOGRAPHY

EDUCATION:

University of Western Australia, B.S., 1988, Biochemistry and Microbiology
University of Oxford, England, D.Phil., 1992, Immunology
Stanford Univ. Med Center, Stanford, CA, PD Fellow, 1992-1995, Immunology

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

1995-2000 Assistant Professor, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Univ. of California, San Francisco
2000-present Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
2000-2004 Associate Professor, Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Univ. of California, San Francisco
2004-present Professor, Dept of Microbiology & Immunology, Univ. of California, San Francisco

HONORS & AWARDS:

1984 The Beazely Award for secondary education in Western Australia
1988 J.A. Wood Memorial prize from the University of Western Australia
1989-1992 Commonwealth Overseas Studentship
1992-1995 Cancer Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship
1996-2000 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences
1997 Cheryl Whitlock Memorial Prize for Postdoctoral Studies
1998-2003 David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship
2005 AAI BD Biosciences Investigator Award

RESEARCH:

As one of the most effective weapons in our anti-pathogen artillery, antibodies need to be made and released fast. The Cyster lab studies how lymphocytes are brought together to mount anti-pathogen antibody responses. This includes studies on chemokines and their receptors and the signals that regulate chemokine responses. Germinal centers are important sites for selection of high affinity B cells and by perturbing cell positioning in these microenvironments; the lab is characterizing the mechanism of affinity maturation. Lymphocytes need to exit lymphoid organs to reach sites of infection. The lab studies how the signaling lipid, sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), promotes cell exit from lymphoid tissues. In rare cases, antibody responses become uncontrolled, causing autoimmune diseases such as Lupus. In a further area of investigation, the lab studies the mechanisms responsible for regulating or deleting auto reactive B cells in peripheral lymphoid tissues. Genetic, RNAi, biochemical, expression array and cellular approaches are used to study these processes in mouse models and multiphoton microscopy is used to image cell-cell interactions in real-time.