Section: Research

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Eva Szomolanyi-Tsuda, M.D.

Interactions of viral gene products and host immune systems

Our major goal is to understand how viral gene products and different components of the host immune system interact and contribute to the outcome of tumor virus infections. We study pathogenesis in polyomavirus-infected mice, which offers an excellent system to approach these questions. Depending on the state of the immune system polyomavirus infection causes very different diseases in adult mice. SCID mice which have no functional T and B cells die of an acute myeloproliferative disease. Mice which have B cells but no T and NK cells develop tumors. We study the role of different components of the immune system in regulating polyomavirus.

We have made the novel observation that polyomavirus induces a protective T cell-independent antibody response in T cell-deficient mice. We are currently investigating the role of non-T cell derived factors, which might be important in vivo during virus infection in this process, and the antiviral mechanisms involved in the T cell-independent antibody-mediated virus clearance.

Office: S2-226
Phone: 508-856-3709
E-mail: Eva.Szomolanyi-Tsuda@umassmed.edu
Keywords: Immunology, Virology, Cell Cycle

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