Michael R. Betts

Professor, Department of Microbiology

Perelman School of Medicine

University of Pennsylvania

The goal of our scientific research is to gain an understanding of the nature of T cell immune responses to viral pathogens and auto-antigens in humans. Our recent work focuses on the study of T cell responses in human and nonhuman primate lymphoid tissues and fluids, including various regional lymph nodes, spleen, thoracic duct lymph fluid, and oral lymphoid tissues in the context of HIV/SIV infection, vaccination, diabetes, and multi-centric Castleman’s disease. Towards this end, we have developed and adapted many immunological assays for the study of viral-specific immune responses in humans, including intracellular cytokine staining, CTL epitope mapping, CD8+ T cells degranulation measurement, and polyfunctional flow cytometry that are broadly used by the global human immunology research community. This research has allowed us to begin to dissect the mechanisms that control CD8+ T cell effector function in the human and nonhuman primates using a combination of cellular and molecular immunology, including the characterization of CD8 effector lineage-defining transcription factors, factors controlling expression and function of CD8+ T cells, transcriptional analysis of CD8+ T cells, tissue-resident memory T cell responses, and in vivo assessments of T cell dynamics in non-human primates.