PhD Maria Fernanda Pascutti

Research

My research interests lie in the regulation of immune responses at barrier tissues, such as the intestinal mucosa, lung and skin. At these barrier tissues, immune cells are in constant interaction with the environment as they must contain potential pathogens while tolerating commensal microorganisms and harmless foreign molecules. This requires active immune regulation. When responses go off balance, autoimmune or inflammatory diseases, such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), arise. I am particularly interested in the regulation of T cell responses in the intestines, which harbor the largest and most complex microbial community of the human body.  Microbiota-specific T cells are generated in healthy individuals, where they cause no damage. However, these same T cell responses seem to be dysregulated and cause pathology in IBD. Intestinal regulatory T cells are also crucial for maintaining tolerance in the gut, but their suppressive functions seem to be decreased in IBD. With the help of cutting-edge single cell and imaging technologies, we are currently investigating how conventional and regulatory T cell subsets interact in healthy and IBD-derived inflamed mucosa and how they affect other immune cells in the tissue. We aim to discover pathogenic pathways or interactions that might lead to new treatments for IBD.

Curriculum Vitae

I obtained my MSc in Biotechnology (2000) and my PhD in Immunology (2007) at the University of Rosario (Argentina), where I studied immune responses against a parasitic infection called Chagas’ disease, endemic in a great part of South America. I also studied the anti-inflammatory properties of the anti-parasitic drug Benznidazole, which not only kills Trypanosoma cruzi but also affects the immune response to it. I then moved to the National Reference for AIDS, in Buenos Aires, where I worked in the optimization of viral vaccine vectors and studied their interaction with dendritic cells, with the aim of generating protective T cell responses to HIV. In 2010, I moved to the Netherlands, to further my knowledge of T cell differentiation and function. I worked initially at Experimental Immunology (AMC) on the function of T cells in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Later, I moved to Sanquin to work on costimulation of T cells during viral infections and the dissection of the memory T cell reservoir in bone marrow. In 2019, I joined the group of Frits Koning to investigate the changes in functionality of conventional and regulatory T cells in IBD.