Thomas Riffelmacher: MAITaflammation: How metabolic fuel choices control unconventional T cell responses

Thomas Riffelmacher (La Jolla Institute for Immunology / San Diego, U.S.A.)

Tom Riffelmacher’s laboratory at La Jolla Institute for Immunology is focused on innate-like T cells, and mucosal associated invariant T (MAIT) cells in particular. MAIT cells are abundant in humans, implicated in metabolic disease and inflammatory conditions, and dependent on metabolic regulation. The group’s work in mice showed that divergent metabolic programs control two populations of MAIT cells, with IL-17 production particularly dependent on continuous fatty acid oxidation in active mitochondria. Because IL-17 and MAIT cells have been implicated in metabolic and cardiovascular disease, they now explore MAIT cell functional and transcriptional subsets in healthy humans as well as during metabolic and cardiovascular disease. 

The events takes place online via Zoom