Center of Excellence for Innate Immunity and Inflammation

The Center of Excellence for Innate Immunity and Inflammation (CoE-III) will use cutting-edge and industry-leading experimental and clinical approaches to answer fundamental questions about how the innate immune system recognizes and responds to invading pathogens, homeostatic perturbations, oncogenesis, and inflammatory signaling to translate research findings into innovative strategies for therapeutic intervention. The CoE-III is led by Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, PhD of the Department of Immunology.

To define the fundamental mechanisms of innate immunity and inflammatory responses to prevent, treat, and cure inflammatory and infectious diseases and cancer.

Innate immunity is the first line of defense against pathogens and sterile insults within the body, and the resulting inflammation forms the initial response to infection and injury. Genetic mutations in innate immunity affect the development of infectious, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases, as well as cancers.

At the core of innate immunity and inflammation research is the investigation of pathogen- and damage-associated molecular pattern sensing mechanisms and the elucidation of downstream signaling cascades. This molecular machinery is central to preventing infectious diseases, and failure to regulate innate and inflammatory responses leads to inflammatory, autoimmune, neurodegenerative, and metabolic diseases and cancers. Therefore, understanding innate immune pathways is central to advancing therapeutic targeting across the disease spectrum.

Using the most advanced methods of molecular, cellular, chemical, and structural biology as well as genetics and immunology, the CoE-III will perform mechanistic studies to define this biological system. Through its efforts, the Center will support and progress the broader mission of St. Jude to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment.

The CoE-III will focus on three primary research areas:

• Fundamental mechanisms of III: using principles discovered from basic biology and fundamental innate immune and cell death mechanisms to form a foundation for identifying therapeutic targets and developing disease treatments.
• Channeling the untapped power of III in cancer: investigating signaling cascades to identify triggers, host cell receptors, intracellular signaling molecules, and cytokines involved in innate immune-mediated processes in cancer for therapeutic benefit.
• III in neuroinflammation: investigating how the innate immune system and inflammatory signaling cascades contribute to central nervous system health and disease to improve patient outcomes.

The CoE-III is actively recruiting faculty and staff who are motivated to undertake research focused on understanding the innate immune system and translating that understanding into clinical benefit.

The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital research community fosters a highly interactive environment with plentiful collaborative opportunities across our basic research and clinical departments and access to state-of-the-art High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities and outstanding Shared Resources and Core Facilities managed by highly engaged Ph.D. level scientists. The $412M Advanced Research Center, opened in 2021, doubles the campus’s research space and adds support for an additional 1,000 employees. Clinically, St. Jude is consistently ranked Top 10 in the U.S. in Pediatric Cancer and is the only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children, and hosts the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project. St. Jude’s commitment to ensuring no child dies in the dawn of life extends across the disease spectrum, and basic and clinical researchers work together every day to advance this mission.