Changquing Xia, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
|
|
Dept. of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine |
Currently Involved In:
Dendritic cells (DC) are the central players in immune regulation. Depending upon DC's maturation status, DC can be immunogenic or tolerogenic when interacting with T cells. The DC-related research being conducted in my laboratory includes DC cell biology; tolerogenic DC development; DC immunotherapy for autoimmune diabetes in non-obese diabetic (NOD) mouse model.
Another research area in my laboratory is on how steady-state apoptosis regulates immune response, and application of steady-state apoptotic cells to induce antigen-specific immune tolerance. Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is a clinical procedure that induces apoptosis of white blood cells collected through leukapheresis. ECP has been applied for many clinical conditions. Currently, we are conducting a pre-clinical study in NOD mice to evaluate experimental ECP therapy in diabetes prevention and reversal.