Regulation of Germinal Center Homeostasis by the BAF Complex

This fall, Vipul Shukla, PhD, assistant professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, received funding for a new R01 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The project seeks to broaden the understanding of inflammation and immunity.  

What are the aims of the project?  

The broad goal of this project is to understand the epigenetic mechanism that regulate high quality antibody responses. Specifically, we aim to focus on how nucleosome remodeling complexes such as Brg1/Brm-associated factor (BAF) complexes regulate gene expression programs required for generation of protective immune responses.  

What are your next steps? 

Our work has uncovered a surprising role of unrestricted inflammation in dampening high quality adaptive immune responses. Our next steps are to understand the molecular mechanisms behind this interplay. 

What do you hope will come out of this funded research? 

Through this research we hope to delineate basic principles governing protective immunity. Successful completion of our work could allow us to design better vaccination and may have important implications into the development of cancers. 

Read the project proposal here.