NIH announces recipients of 2011 Transformative Research Award Projects

Researchers in the dermatology department at BWH receive $6 million grant to fund innovative research

The National Institutes of Health has announced the recipients of the 2011 Transformative Research Award Projects. This innovative research program was established in 2009 to support exceptionally innovative, high risk, original and/or unconventional research projects, and is supported by the NIH Common Fund. These five-year grants, which do not have fixed budget caps, support projects with the potential to overturn scientific dogma and to have broad impact throughout medical science. Brigham and Women's Hospital physician and researcher Thomas S. Kupper, MD, is one of 17 recipients nationally, receiving support for his proposed study of tissue resident T cells and their role as a first line of defense against viral, fungal and bacterial infections, as well as certain cancers, and their potential in the development of better and more effective vaccines.

Very recently, Transformative Research Project co-investigator and BWH physician and researcher Rachael Clark, MD, PhD, made the surprising discovery that normal human skin contains 20 billion memory T cells, more than twice the total number of T cells that circulate in blood. "This was a paradigm-shifting discovery, an observation that was hiding in plain sight. We are now beginning to understand that similar unappreciated populations of memory T cells live in lung, GI tract, and reproductive mucosa", says Dr. Kupper, an internationally recognized immunologist who is also the Chairman of Dermatology at BWH. "We believe these disease-fighting T cells were generated by past encounters with infectious agents, and represent our first and best protection against subsequent infections."

Currently, most vaccines are designed principally to help the body produce circulating antibodies, which are made by B cells. In this Transformative Research Project, Dr. Kupper and colleagues propose that for many infections, diseases and cancer, vaccines should be developed with the goal of generating long-lived populations of protective tissue resident memory T cells. Drs. Kupper and Clark are joined by BWH Dermatology faculty members and co-investigators Clare Baecher-Allan, PhD, and Robert Fuhlbrigge, MD., PhD, on this $6 million, five year research project.