Executive Co-Director, ITI
Chair, Department of Immunology
Dr. Marion Pepper., Ph.D., is a Professor of Immunology at the University Of Washington School Of Medicine and is a co-founder and executive co-director of the ITI.
Dr. Pepper graduated with a Bachelor’s in Biology and English from Williams College and received her Ph.D. in Immunology in 2006 from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Minnesota and joined the Department of Immunology as an Assistant Professor in 2011.
CD4+ T cells are important mediators of a protective adaptive immune response. After an immune response is initiated by activation of a naive T cell through its T cell receptor binding a specific peptide: MHC ligand on an antigen presenting cell, CD4+ T cells can differentiate into various functionally defined subsets. Each of these subsets has its own arsenal of antimicrobial weapons or regulatory functions that are regulated by the expression of one or more master transcription factors. As an immune response subsides, some of the CD4+ T cells survive to become “memory” T cells with the capacity to fend off pathogens better than their naive counterparts. Her laboratory studies how CD4+ T cells differentiate into memory cells and how the resulting memory populations function by tracking and manipulating antigen-specific immune responses. Using techniques developed in the Jenkins lab, her lab uses MHC Class II tetramers to identify and phenotype antigen-specific cells through the entire immune response. Her lab focuses on the CD4+ T cell response to various pathogens from vaccine strains of bacteria (attenuated Listeria) to complex parasitic infections (Plasmodium and Toxoplasma). The overarching aim of the lab is to generate the knowledge necessary to inform better vaccine design.
Dr. Pepper co-founded the ITI with Dr. Michael Gale Jr. and they work closely together to co-direct the Institute.
