Skin Infection Sheds Light on Immune Cells Living in Our Skin

BRIGHAM AND WOMEN’S HOSPITAL

Very recently, researchers discovered an important population of immune cells called memory T cells living in parts of the body that are in contact with the environment (e.g., skin, lung, GI tract). How these “resident” memory T cells are generated was unknown, and their importance with regard to how our immune system remembers infection and how it prevents against re-infection is being studied intensively. Now, a study by a Brigham and Women’s Hospital research team led by Xiaodong Jiang, PhD, research scientist and Thomas S. Kupper, MD, Chair of the BWH Department of Dermatology, and the Thomas B. Fitzpatrick Professor of Dermatology at Harvard, has used a model involving a vaccinia virus infection of the skin to answer important questions about how these newly discovered cells protect us. Learn more at http://bit.ly/xIFm7M.