Ian Nicholas Crispe, M.B., B.S., Ph.D.

Our lab studies innate and adaptive immunity with emphasis on the liver. The liver imposes immunological tolerance as an allograft, and is susceptible to a number of persistent viruses and parasites. We are interested in how the local bias towards T cell tolerance is exploited by pathogens. The liver also makes an innate immune response following sterile injury, and we use gene therapy vectors to explore these processes in mice, and primary liver tissues and cells isolated from surgical liver resections to study them in humans. Our long-term scientific goals are to define the roles played by each of the liver cell populations in tolerance, immunity and immunopathology, and in consequence our technical expertise is in cell subset isolation. Current areas of interest include: the sensing of damage-associated molecular patterns during sterile liver injury; the identity and function of bone marrow-derived versus yolk sac-derived subsets of liver macrophages; the induction of inflammation by diets rich in fat, sugar or alcohol; the impact of chronic Hepatitis C Virus infection on the response to non-viral insults; and the impact of co-infection with Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B on host defense against both viruses.