Adam Courtney
University of Michigan, MI·Microbiology & Immunology
T cells, the immune cells that hunt infected and cancerous cells, must tell real threats apart from the body's own healthy molecules. Their main sensor is the T cell antigen receptor (TCR), which scans the surfaces of other cells.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biochemistry
Chemistry
- Topics
T cell receptor
TCR signaling
T cells
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2027
What they work on
- Determine how negative feedback loops, in which activated kinases (enzymes that add phosphate tags) dampen their own pathway, shape distinct T cell receptor signaling outcomes, using chemical tools and immunological assays.
- Identify how the protein makeup of TCR signaling complexes changes with feedback and with how strongly the receptor binds its ligand, using proximity labeling to tag neighboring proteins and mass spectrometry to identify them.
- Characterize long-term adaptive desensitization of TCR signaling caused by changes in gene expression, using RNA sequencing to measure which genes T cells switch on or off.
More about the research
Signaling proteins inside the T cell then interpret what the TCR detects. This machinery is extremely sensitive: it can spot a few foreign molecules among many very similar self molecules. How the cell decides whether to ignore a signal or switch on is still unclear. That gap matters because T cells are increasingly used as therapies.
Why it matters
T cell-based therapies depend on T cells responding to the right targets and ignoring the wrong ones. By defining how the signaling machinery inside T cells decides whether a molecule is a threat, this work could inform how therapeutic T cells are designed or tuned for treating human disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Arthur Salomon
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Biochemistry
Identify the binding partners of signaling proteins in T cell lines and primary mouse T cells, using TurboID, a labeling enzyme that tags nearby proteins in living cells, followed by mass spectrometry.
Dustin Maly
University of Washington, WA·Biochemistry
Define the pathways that make A-, B- and C-Raf kinases sensitive or resistant to specific classes of ATP-competitive inhibitors and co-inhibition strategies, using a suite of molecular tools.
Aliza Ehrlich
Virginia Commonwealth University, VA·Neuroscience
Determine how agonist-induced desensitization, internalization and phosphorylation regulate the mu opioid receptor (MOR) at the neuronal primary cilium, the cell's antenna-like projection.
The school
University of Michigan: 124 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 963 research doctorates a year.
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