James B Mclachlan
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Microbiology & Immunology
Most germs enter the body through mucosal surfaces such as the lungs, gut and reproductive tract. Yet most vaccines are injected into muscle.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
vaccines
adjuvants
mucosal immunity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- 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.
- Determine how dmLT plus outer membrane vesicle adjuvants send vaccine-specific B cells to the lung, gut and reproductive tract, and whether these become tissue-resident memory cells.
- Test whether vaccines adjuvanted with dmLT and outer membrane vesicles protect against viral and bacterial infections in the lung, gut and female reproductive tract.
More about the research
These shots build strong immunity in the blood but often fail to protect those entry points. This project asks how adjuvants, ingredients added to vaccines to boost the immune response, can redirect an injected vaccine's immunity to mucosal tissues.
Why it matters
Nearly 15 million people die each year from infectious diseases, and many of these infections begin at the lung, gut or reproductive tract. Understanding how adjuvant combinations steer injected vaccines toward these tissues could guide the design of better vaccines against mucosal bacterial and viral pathogens.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Liang Qiao
Georgia State University, GA·Microbiology & Immunology
Build plasmids with ubiquitin-tagged HIV clade B Gag and Env minigenes encoding CTL epitopes, package them in bovine papillomavirus-like particles, and test after oral immunization of mice whether MHC class Ia-restricted killer T cells arise without HIV-specific CD4+ helper T cells.
Stuart Levitz
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA·Microbiology & Immunology
Test how well each of seven recombinant cryptococcal proteins, combined with the adjuvant CAF01, protects mice against virulent Cryptococcus strains found around the world.
Ananda W Goldrath
University of California-San Diego, CA·Microbiology & Immunology
Define how the transcriptional repressor Hic1 regulates the formation and maintenance of tissue-resident memory CD8 T cells, and identify the infection-induced signals that turn Hic1 on.
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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