Carpenter Lab
Principal Investigator: Susan Carpenter
Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA)
Primary Subfield: Immunology
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an incredibly successful pathogen that survives and replicates in innate immune cells like macrophages. Although we know a lot about the cytokines and chemokines expressed by macrophages in response to Mtb, the co- and post-transcriptional mechanisms that turn these responses on and off remain elusive. Because disruption of the early inflammatory milieu plays a critical role in determining whether Mtb is controlled or goes on to cause acute disease, it is important that we fully appreciate the complexity of the innate immune response to Mtb. There is increasing appreciation for post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms in controlling the timing and abundance of innate immune protein expression in macrophages. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), defined as transcripts greater than 500nt in length that do not code for protein, represent a massive family of RNAs with the potential to modulate inflammatory gene expression and infection outcomes. Although the human genome encodes over 20,000 lncRNAs, we only understand the function of a tiny fraction of these. A major reason our understanding of lncRNAs has lagged behind that of protein c…
Active NIH Awards
- 1R21AI193256-01A1: Determining the role for lncRNAs in TB infection in macrophages (2026)
- 5R35GM137801-05: High throughput functional characterization of lncRNAs in macrophage biology (2024)
- 5R01AI148413-05: Determining the conserved molecular mechanisms contributing to inflammation during Sepsis (2024)
- 3R35GM137801-05S1: High throughput functional characterization of lncRNAs in macrophage biology (2024)
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