IISER MOHALI

Abstract: Our lab studies the sensing of cell death and/or damage by sentinel cells, and how this process can functionally determine the nature of the response to said damage. We leverage the conceptual framework for interrogating the specificity of response to cell death and supporting preclinical studies as a novel paradigm for therapeutic interventions in various disease settings. I will describe the tenets of our theory of effector response to cell death and/or damage (Rothlin CV, Hille TD, Ghosh S. Nat Rev Immunol. 2021 May;21(5):292-304. PMID: 33188303). I will present vignettes of past and ongoing studies on (i) response to apoptotic versus necroptotic cell death, and (ii) evidence that the type of tumor cell death can influence the nature of the immune response against tumors. I will also give an example of how engineering immune cell receptors involved in recognizing cellular damage or dead cells can alter the tissue response in Alzheimer’s Disease mouse model to preserve against cognitive decline.