Karen M Haas
Wake Forest University, NC·Microbiology & Immunology
B cells are immune cells that make antibodies. Some respond to sugar-coated structures, or glycans, on the surface of bacteria and cancer cells.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biochemistry
- Topics
B cells
antibodies
humoral immunity
- Grants
- 4 known grants, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Characterize tissue-specific B cell expansion, isotype switching, and clonal diversity after gut colonization by Klebsiella pneumoniae in mice, using distinct bacterial strains and mutants as probes.
- Generate monoclonal antibodies from Kpn-reactive B cells that recognize non-capsule surface antigens, and test whether they drive opsonophagocytosis (engulfment by immune cells) in vitro and protect mice in vivo.
- Determine how advanced age and sex hormones affect the development and function of B-1b cells and PPS3-specific B cells responding to Streptococcus pneumoniae polysaccharides in mice.
- Investigate why phosphorylcholine-specific B cells, natural antibody secretion, and mucosal protection against S. pneumoniae differ between aged male and female mice.
- Define how CD4+ T cells support antibodies against tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens (TACAs), and how blocking the immune brake PD-1 alters the diversity of Tn-specific B cells.
- Identify how a Tn-specific IgM antibody kills tumor cells and promotes adaptive anti-tumor immunity, and search human B cell repertoires for broadly reactive Tn-specific antibodies.
- Characterize a knock-in mouse carrying a tumor glycan-reactive antibody heavy chain, testing its B cells' anti-tumor roles and the conditions that drive isotype switching and plasma cell formation.
More about the research
The lab's four projects ask how these responses are controlled and how to harness them. Two projects concern dangerous bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Two concern abnormal sugars on tumors. Across all of them, the goal is to understand which B cells protect, what regulates them, and how their antibodies could become vaccines or treatments.
Why it matters
The work could lead to monoclonal antibody treatments and vaccine targets for antibiotic-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae infections, which are a major threat to hospitalized and immunocompromised patients. It could also guide pneumococcal vaccines tailored by sex and age for elderly people. In cancer, it could reveal ways to use glycan-reactive B cells and antibodies, such as a Tn-specific IgM, against tumors that carry abnormal sugars.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Development of monoclonal antibodies against disseminating Klebsiella pneumoniae
NIH · Aug 2026 – Jul 2028
THE IMPACT OF ADVANCED AGE AND SEX ON HUMORAL IMMUNITY TO STREPTOCOCCUS PNEUMONIAE
NIH · Sep 2022 – Aug 2027
Leveraging B cell specificities for tumor glycans to elicit potent anti-tumor immunity
NIH · Jul 2022 – Jun 2027
Closest labs
Justin Bailey
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether a dengue vaccine's serotype composition determines the balance, neutralizing potency, and durability of serotype-specific versus cross-reactive memory B cells and monoclonal antibodies, and whether those responses predict protection after controlled human challenge with serotype 2.
Jenna Bartley
University of Connecticut, CT·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether clearing senescent cells with senolytic drugs before vaccination improves cell-mediated and antibody responses to recombinant flu nucleoprotein and adjuvanted inactivated flu vaccines in aged mice.
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
Wake Forest University: 27 labs on PI Pages, $345M a year on research, 54 research doctorates a year.
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