SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES

Many diseases, including cancer, autoimmunity, infections, and allergies, are associated with dysregulation of immune responses. Therapeutic strategies targeting the immune system have succeeded in treating a wide range of diseases. However, we lack the detailed understanding of the immune system ne...

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Main Author: Cui, Ang
Other Authors: Hacohen, Nir
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139603
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1087-8568
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author Cui, Ang
author2 Hacohen, Nir
author_facet Hacohen, Nir
Cui, Ang
author_sort Cui, Ang
collection MIT
description Many diseases, including cancer, autoimmunity, infections, and allergies, are associated with dysregulation of immune responses. Therapeutic strategies targeting the immune system have succeeded in treating a wide range of diseases. However, we lack the detailed understanding of the immune system needed to design more effective and targeted therapies for many immune-mediated diseases that yet have no cure. To address this knowledge gap, this thesis presents a dictionary of immune responses. We leveraged recent advancements in high-throughput genomic technologies to comprehensively interrogate how major cell types involved in the immune system respond to immune stimuli. We created a dictionary of single-cell transcriptomic profiles of individual responses to 86 cytokines and 5 vaccine adjuvants in over 20 cell populations, representing one of the most comprehensive analyses of cellular responses to immune stimuli to date. Based on the dictionary, we created companion software for assessing cytokine activities, constructing cell-cell communication network models, and analyzing time-series data. Our dictionary reveals principles of immune responses, expands our knowledge of activation states in each immune cell type, and provides a framework to assess the roles that cytokines and cell-cell communication networks play in any immune response. Based on a detailed understanding of immune responses provided by these systems approaches, we created vaccination strategies that significantly enhanced CD8+ T-cell responses in animal studies. Overall, this thesis combines high-throughput computational and experimental approaches to systematically characterize immune responses, enabling the design of more targeted and effective vaccines and immune-based therapies for thus far incurable diseases.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1396032022-01-15T03:10:23Z SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES Cui, Ang Hacohen, Nir Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology Many diseases, including cancer, autoimmunity, infections, and allergies, are associated with dysregulation of immune responses. Therapeutic strategies targeting the immune system have succeeded in treating a wide range of diseases. However, we lack the detailed understanding of the immune system needed to design more effective and targeted therapies for many immune-mediated diseases that yet have no cure. To address this knowledge gap, this thesis presents a dictionary of immune responses. We leveraged recent advancements in high-throughput genomic technologies to comprehensively interrogate how major cell types involved in the immune system respond to immune stimuli. We created a dictionary of single-cell transcriptomic profiles of individual responses to 86 cytokines and 5 vaccine adjuvants in over 20 cell populations, representing one of the most comprehensive analyses of cellular responses to immune stimuli to date. Based on the dictionary, we created companion software for assessing cytokine activities, constructing cell-cell communication network models, and analyzing time-series data. Our dictionary reveals principles of immune responses, expands our knowledge of activation states in each immune cell type, and provides a framework to assess the roles that cytokines and cell-cell communication networks play in any immune response. Based on a detailed understanding of immune responses provided by these systems approaches, we created vaccination strategies that significantly enhanced CD8+ T-cell responses in animal studies. Overall, this thesis combines high-throughput computational and experimental approaches to systematically characterize immune responses, enabling the design of more targeted and effective vaccines and immune-based therapies for thus far incurable diseases. Ph.D. 2022-01-14T15:22:44Z 2022-01-14T15:22:44Z 2021-06 2021-06-15T13:59:11.507Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139603 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1087-8568 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright MIT http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Cui, Ang
SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES
title SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES
title_full SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES
title_fullStr SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES
title_full_unstemmed SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES
title_short SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACHES TO DECIPHERING COMPLEX IMMUNE RESPONSES
title_sort systems biology approaches to deciphering complex immune responses
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/139603
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1087-8568
work_keys_str_mv AT cuiang systemsbiologyapproachestodecipheringcompleximmuneresponses