Dr. Summit Singhaviranon and Dr. Pramod Srivastava's lab published a paper, entitled Low-avidity T cells drive endogenous tumor immunity in mice and humans in Nature Immunology, which demonstrates the superior anti-tumor activity of T cells with weak binding to cancer cells over T cells with strong binding to cancer cells in both mice and humans. Their paper both provides a fundamental mechanistic rationale for this finding and proposes a viable approach to translate these findings to patient care.  Their work  challenges the existing paradigm that is focused on maximizing T cell binding to cancer cells and has the potential to improve cancer patient outcomes in numerous ways.

Dr. Andrew Harrison is a former graduate student in Dr. Penghua Wang’s lab and this paper entitled, “UBXN9 governs GLUT4-mediated spatial confinement of RIG-I-like receptors and signaling”,  identifies a noncanonical, glucose independent role for GLUT4 in regulating antiviral immunity in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue. Their work further highlights a unique relationship between GLUT4, interferon pathways and human inflammatory myopathies.

We welcome Dr. Bernie Cook as assistant professor in the Department of Immunology. Dr.  Cook provides science editing and vector illustration support to the faculty and staff within the School of Medicine.

The annual Biomedical Science Graduate Student Research Day is an annual celebration of the research accomplishments of the students in the Biomedical Science PhD program at UConn Health. The Department of Immunology celebrates the accomplishments of all students and congratulates these 6 award winners from different laboratories.

• Andreia Cadar: Graduate Student Mentorship Award (Mentor: Dr. Jenna Bartley Ziming Cao: 1st Place Poster Presentation Award (Mentor: Dr. Zhichao Fan)
• Ziming Cao: 1^st Place Poster Presentation Award  (Mentor: Dr. Zhichao Fan)
• Timofey Karginov – Edward G. Henderson Memorial Prize for Outstanding Thesis in Biomedical Science (Mentor: Dr. Anthony Vella)
• William Theune - Lepow Award for Outstanding Biomedical Science PhD Student Entering the 4th Year of Study (Mentor: Dr. Kepeng Wang)
• Vincent Graziano: 1st Place Oral Presentation Award (Mentor: Dr. Vijay Rathinam)
• Kristina Delgado: 3rd Place Poster Presentation Award (Mentors: Dr. Radolf, Dr. Hawley, Dr. Caimano)

William Theune received the 2024 Lepow Award for Outstanding Biomedical PhD Student entering the 4th year of study at the Graduate Student Research Day.  This award, established in 1986 in honor of Dr. Irwin H. Lepow, a well-known faculty member, researcher and founding father of UConn Health, is given to the outstanding fourth-year student in the Biomedical Science Ph.D. program. William studies under the mentorship of Dr. Kepeng Wang.

Congratulations to Andreia Cadar for receiving the Graduate Student Mentorship Award at the 2024 Graduate Student Research Day.  This award is presented to a student for their outstanding and sustained contributions in mentoring activities that improve graduate student life and further the overall educational mission of the university. Andreia has committed substantial efforts toward outreach and mentorship both at UConn Health and throughout the community to help provide opportunity to younger students and train future scientists. Andreia’s thesis project focuses on the impact of senescence cells on age-related declines in immune responses. More specifically, her research aims to evaluate the ability of senolytic therapies to improve vaccine responses in aged mice. Dr. Jenna Bartley is her mentor.

Congratulations to Vincent Graziano for receiving first place for best oral presentation at the 2024 Graduate Student Research Day.  Vinnie  is a member of Dr. Vijay Rathinam’s laboratory, and his project is titled “RNA N-glycosylation enables innate immune evasion and homeostatic efferocytosis”.

Congratulations to Ziming Cao for receiving the first-place award  for best poster presentation at the 2024 Graduate Student Research Day.  With the guidance of his mentor Dr. Zhichao Fan, Ziming’s project focuses on how Sh3bp2 mutation altered neutrophil development profiling by single-cell RNA sequencing.

Timofey Karginov received the 2024 Henderson Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis in Biomedical Science at the annual Graduate Student Research Day.   This prize was established in memory of Edward G. Henderson, Ph.D., a faculty member in the Department of Pharmacology from 1968 to 1997. Dr. Henderson is remembered for his commitment to graduate education and his dedication to the supervision of graduate students.  Timofey studied under the mentorship of Dr. Anthony Vella.

Congratulations to Kristina Delgado for receiving the third-place poster presentation award at the 2024 Graduate Student Research Day.   Kristina’s project centers around the development of a vaccine against Treponema pallidum (Tp), the causative agent of syphilis.  Under the mentorship of Drs. Justin Radolf, Kelly Hawley, and Melissa Caimano, Kristina’s research focuses on identifying surface-exposed loops of Tp ß-barrel-forming outer membrane proteins (OMPs) to inform vaccine candidate selection.  Her use of long-term in vitro  cultivation of Tp allowed for the development of a GFP⁺ Tp strain, which enables precise tracking of bacterial infections with the immune system, significantly advancing the field’s ability to study spirochete-host dynamics and identify effective vaccinogens.