Jay Kolls
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Pneumonia is the leading killer of children worldwide and a major cause of death in adults. The lab studies how the lungs defend themselves against pneumonia-causing microbes.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
pneumonia
Pneumocystis
tissue-resident memory T cells
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through May 2032
What they work on
- Define the metabolic needs of tissue-resident memory CD4+ T cells in mouse and primate lungs and noses, and test whether these cells need ongoing antigen exposure to survive long term.
- Determine whether fibroblasts and tissue-resident memory T cells maintain each other through feedback loops that depend on IL-17RC signaling, and whether these T cells epigenetically modify lung fibroblast populations.
- Refine a precision-cut lung slice model that keeps Pneumocystis murina alive, comparing submerged and air–liquid interface setups to improve fungal attachment, survival and growth.
- Test whether the lung slice model can measure fungal killing by antifungal drugs (folate-pathway blockers and echinocandins) and by macrophages that use mannan and β-glucan recognition receptors.
- Compare mucosal and injected immunization with GSC1, an ascus surface protein, for preventing Pneumocystis pneumonia, and test antibodies against ascus or troph forms as treatments for established infection and IRIS.
- Validate PCR and CRISPR assays that detect the replicating troph form of Pneumocystis in mouse and human samples, and assess variation in the target genes across North America, Africa and Asia.
More about the research
It also builds tools to diagnose and treat Pneumocystis, a fungus that causes severe pneumonia in infants and in people with weakened immune systems. The work ranges from basic T-cell biology to new lab models, vaccines and diagnostic tests.
Why it matters
Pneumonia is the top cause of death in children worldwide. Pneumocystis pneumonia alone leads to about 15,000 US hospitalizations a year at nearly $1 billion in cost, and its frontline treatment has not changed in 25 years. This work could point to new vaccines and therapies against pneumonia. It could also provide a lab model for drug testing and life-form-specific tests that separate real infection from harmless colonization in people with advanced AIDS and other immunocompromised patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Lee Quinton
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Map when and where CD4+ resident memory T cells, immune cells that stay in previously infected lungs, become activated near airways and veins while neutrophils spread through the lung, using imaging and cytometry in mouse pneumonia.
Christin Kuo
Stanford University, CA·Biology
Identify and characterize a subset of neuroendocrine progenitors (NEPr) in distal human airway neuroepithelial bodies, using precision cut lung slice cultures from healthy adult lungs.
James B Mclachlan
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how intradermal immunization with the detoxified enterotoxin adjuvant dmLT combined with bacterial outer membrane vesicles directs vaccine-specific T cells to mucosal tissues, tracked with MHC class I and II tetramers.
The school
Tulane University of Louisiana: 17 labs on PI Pages, $276M a year on research, 187 research doctorates a year.
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