Nathan Karin graduated the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, followed by a Ph.D. thesis at the Weizmann Inst (T cell mediated autoimmunity) and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Stanford University. The laboratory currently focuses on exploring the interplay between subsets of effector and regulatory T cell in the context of cancer and autoimmunity. Our working hypothesis is the interventions towards enhancement of the activities of effector T cells would effectively treats cancer diseases (alone or in combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors), whereas restraining their activity may well treat autoimmune diseases.
The experimental models that are investigated in the lab are: A transgenic cancer model of melanoma (a skin cancer disease), and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) serving as a model for Multiple Sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system.
Key recent discoveries of the lab:
- The discovery of a chemokine that induces regulatory T cells and the discovery of a novel sub-type of these cells, and its amplifications for therapy of cancer and autoimmunity (Barsheshet at al PNAS, 2017)
- The discovery of the biological mechanism by which one of the major subtypes of myeloid derived suppressor cells is mobilized form the bone marrow to the blood and later to the tumor site to support its development (Hawila et al Cell Reports, 2017)
- Identification of a novel mechanism by which the immune system restrains cancer growth.
- Identification of novel subtypes of effector CD4+ and CD8+ T cells that participate in the induction of anti-tumor immunity (manuscript in prepartation).