Diane Mathis

Department of Pathology
Harvard Medical School
77 Ave. Louis Pasteur
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617-432-7742
Fax: 617-432-7744
e-mail:dm@hms.harvard.edu
Website: http://cbdm.hms.harvard.edu/

18 Postdoctoral Fellows, 4 Graduate Students

Our lab works in the fields of T cell differentiation and autoimmunity, with a special emphasis on exploiting the most advanced transgenic and gene-targeting technology to engineer new mouse models. Studies on T cell differentiation focus on selection of the T cell repertoire in the thymus and cellular and molecular influences on T cell survival in the periphery. Studies on autoimmunity explore the immunological mechanisms of diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and APECED. Major questions tackled are what initiates these diseases, how is their progression regulated, and what are the final effector mechanisms. Aire and FoxP3-expressing Treg cells are particular foci. In addition, modern genetic and genomic approaches are used to identify disease-modifying genes in both human patients and mouse models. The application of computational and bioinformatic strategies to these and other issues is actively pursued. Lastly, we have been engaged in a collaborative effort to develop and apply novel whole-mouse imaging strategies to immunological problems.

Papers & Publications:

1. S. Turvey, E. Swart, M. Denis, U. Mahmood, C. Benoist, R. Weissleder, and D. Mathis. Noninvasive imaging of pancreatic inflammation and its reversal in type 1 diabetes. J. Clin. Invest. (2005) 115, 2454-2461.

2. G. Hyatt , R. Melamed , R. Park, R. Seguritan, C. Laplace, L. Poirot, S. Zucchelli, R. Obst, M. Matos, E. Venanzi, A. Goldrath, L. Nguyen, J. Luckey, T. Yamagata, A. Herman, J. Jacobs, D. Mathis, and C. Benoist. Gene-expression microarrays: glimpses at the immunological genome. Nature Immunol. (2006) 7, 686-691.

3. Nishio J, Gaglia, J, Turvey, S, Benoist C, and Mathis, D. Islet recovery and reversal of murine type-1 diabetes in the absence of infused spleen cell contribution. Science. (2006) 311, 1775-1778.

4. Wu HJ, Sawaya H, Binstadt B, Brickelmaier M, Blasius A, Gorelik L, Mahmood U, Weissleder R, Carulli J, Benoist C, Mathis D. Inflammatory arthritis can be reined in by CpG-induced DC:NK-cell cross-talk. J. Exp. Med. (2007) 204, 1911-1922.

5. Mathis D, Benoist C. A decade of AIRE. Nat. Rev. Imm. (2007) 7, 645-50.