Krupnick, Alexander Sasha
Primary Appointment
Associate Professor, Surgery
Education
- MD, Medicine, University of Michigan
Contact Information
PO Box 800679
Charlottesville, VA 22908
Telephone: (434) 924-8746
Fax: (434) 244-9429
Email: ak2yf@virginia.edu
Website: https://surgery.virginia.edu/lung-immuno-biology-lab/
Research Interests
Pulmonary Immunoregulation
Research Description
Lungs are more immunogenic than other organ and tissue grafts. In the clinical setting, combined heart lung transplants have demonstrated the rapid onset of lung rejection. Recent work in our laboratory has demonstrated that immunoregulation of the lungs is unique compared to other solid organs. Unlike the case for other organs CD8+ T cells potentiate graft acceptance rather than rejection. Other pro-inflammatory cells normal considered deleterious for organ grafts act to facilitate lung acceptance. We are currently working to unravel such details in order to design unique tolerance protocols specific for the lung. Our laboratory is also performing mechanistic studies to elucidate the requirements for T cell activation following lung transplantation in an attempt to develop modulatory strategies to downregulate immune responses to lung grafts.
In addition we have demonstrated that the immune response to pulmonary malignancies is unique. Our laboratory also evaluates novel immunomodulatory cytokines for the treatment of pulmonary malignancies.