Grant: Operating Grant

The body's first line of defense against a virus infection is to trigger an adapted immune response in order to limit replication and spread of the virus. However, there is a fine line between enough response to limit the virus-associated disease and too much response that can cause secondary illnesses in the individual (host). Indeed, an uncontrolled response in term of intensity or duration is harmful to the host, possibly leading to disease such as chronic inflammation and a response whereby the body begins to attack its own cells, known as autoimmune disease. Consequently to prevent this, the strength and duration of the immune response need to be tightly regulated to achieve the best balance between efficiently fighting the infection and the generation of adverse side effects for the host's survival. Although much improvement has been achieved in our understanding of how the response is initiated, far much less is known about how this response is sustained or resolved. Our research endeavor is aimed at characterizing the intracellular mechanisms allowing the host's cells to positively or negatively regulate the duration of the immune response to a safe level. We believe that our research will help design new drugs agents, which ultimately could reduce the cost of virus-induced secondary diseases.