Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
"I’m driven by the novel challenges posed by the ever-changing nature of the immune system to be creative, push boundaries and discover new factors that can aid in fighting diseases."
Overview
My laboratory is focused on understanding T cell immune responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis and other infections, as well as self-antigens in the context of neurodegenerative diseases.
Specifically, the identification of T cell epitopes and characterization of T cell subsets resulting from the immune response to tuberculosis. Our work has illustrated that the T cell immune response is broader than previously understood. This led to the development of a peptide megapool (MTB300) that can be used to characterize TB-specific T cell immune responses, which has been used by multiple collaborators to characterize TB-specific or vaccine-induced responses.
We are also interested in defining the role of non-tuberculous mycobacteria in the immune response against TB and vaccinations.
Finally, we study T cell responses directed against self-proteins with implications for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and ALS. This work has identified α-synuclein as a target for T cell immune responses in Parkinson’s disease (PD) which provided evidence that autoimmunity plays a role in PD.
Our goal is to understand these immune responses better to help develop better diagnostics and more effective therapies.
Featured publications
Classical CD4 T cells as the cornerstone of antimycobacterial immunity.
CD4+CCR6+ T cells dominate the BCG-induced transcriptional signature.
Lab Members
Research Projects
Neurodegenerative Diseases
The aim of this work funded by Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), in collaboration with Dr. Alessandro Sette, is to
Tuberculosis
The aim of this work, in collaboration with Dr. Bjoern Peters, is to identify and characterize T cell epitopes from
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Sep 23
RT @CDC_TB: How is #TB spread? TB bacteria are spread through the air from one person to another. The TB bacteria are put into the air when…
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Sep 15
RT @TcellScientist: We have a new manuscript up on bioRxiv "IL-10 suppresses T cell expansion while promoting tissue-resident memory cell f…
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Aug 09
RT @bpeters: sciencedirect.com/science/articl… It took a long time, but finally, the first results from the NIH IMPACC study are coming out. This pa…
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Aug 03
The #TBreboot meeting looks exciting, but I'm spending the week here with 11k other scouts 😊☀️🇸🇪
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jul 17
RT @danielleobarber: Looking for a post-doc and wanna fight #tuberculosis? The Barber lab at the NIH in Bethesda, MD is looking for post-d…
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jul 12
Vacation mode 🇸🇪☺️
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jul 10
These alleles and associated gene signature can help identify individuals who are at risk of active TB
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jul 10
Expression of the 3 alleles is associated with lower magnitude of Mtb-specific responses and a specific gene signature
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jul 10
New preprint 👇where we identified 3 HLA class II alleles associated with active TB. medrxiv.org/cgi/content/sh… @TomScriba @ljiresearch @SetteLab @bpeters @LYChihab
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jul 06
Turns out both central and peripheral inflammation plays a role in Parkinson's disease. Take a look at our recently published review on this topic 👇 content.iospress.com/articles/journ… @SetteLab @ljiresearch @ASAP_Research
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jun 13
A golf ball cut in half 🙂
Cecilia Lindestam Arlehamn
arlehamn Jun 08
RT @iamscicomm: A thread on designing visually appealing slides. There are lots of great books/websites/videos about making slide presentat…
From the lab
Scientists uncover new targets for treating Parkinson’s disease
LA JOLLA, CA—Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) have found that people with Parkinson’s disease have a clear
Once upon a BCG vaccine
LA JOLLA—A long, long time ago, the BCG vaccine was approved for use against tuberculosis (TB), and it’s still
New look at COVID-19 cases does not support link between BCG vaccination and lower mortality
Researchers tracking COVID-19 mortality early in the pandemic noticed that some countries had a significantly lower mortality rate than others.
Awards & Honors
- 2020 Tullie and Rickey Families SPARK Awards Winner
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for TB Vaccine Discovery – Early Career Scientist Award Fall 2016
Location: