Tohoku university school of medicine

We are engaging in education and research on Microbiology, Immunology, Laboratory Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. Our members are now a Professor, an Associated Professor and five Master Course students. Our main subject is to clarify the host defense mechanism against microbial infection at a molecular level, with a particular focus on the innate immune mechanism. The research on this subject is related to the mechanism in which the fate of infection is determined. We have launched several projects to clarify the innate immune mechanism in infection with bacteria, fungi and virus, to approach the pathogenicity of infectious diseases and the action mechanism of vaccine in its preventative effect and to develop the novel techniques for diagnosis of infectious diseases. In bacterial and fungal infection, we are aiming to unravel the role of pattern recognition receptors, such as Toll-like receptors and C-type lectin receptors, and innate immune lymphocytes, such as NKT cells and γδ T cells, and in viral infection, to analyze the replication mechanism of parbovirus B19 and to develop the novel techniques for genetic examination of infectious diseases caused by this virus.

1)Deoxynucleic acids from Cryptococcus neoformans activate myeloid dendritic cells via a TLR9-dependent pathway J. Immunol. 180, 4067-4074 2008

2)Grant-in-Aid for Academic Research by Ohyama Health Foundation Awarded by Ohyama Health Foundation 2008

3)Pathogenicity of pneumonia and immune responses (Ed. Kazuo Suzuki), "Dictionary for Host Defense" Asakura-shoten, Tokyo, 119-126 2007

4)Host defense responses in infectious diseases (Eds. Masao Omata, Ichiro Kanazawa, Toru Yamaguchi), "Internal Medicine" Igaku-shoin, Tokyo, 330-337 2006

5)Innate immunity in the lungs to cryptococcal infection. In: Fungal Immunology: From an organ perspective (Eds. Fidel, P., and Haffnagle G. B.) Springer, New York, pp. 135- 156 2005

infection and immunity, fungus, virus, pneumococcus, parbovirus B19, cryptococcus, innate immunity, TLR, C-type lectin receptor, vaccine