Jason M. Schenkel

I am grateful to have trained at such an incredible center during my graduate school years. Marc’s contributions at the helm of the CFI cannot be understated. Thank you Marc, for your service and leadership!

With deep gratitude, we thank Dr. Marc Jenkins for his decades of leadership, mentorship, and dedication to the Center for Immunology. The foundation he built will guide and inspire us for years to come.

Fantastic new paper looking at the extrinsic effects of PD-1 loss! Check it out.

MD Anderson announces 10th cohort of Andrew Sabin Family Fellows The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced its 10th cohort of Andrew Sabin Family Fellows, comprised of 10 early career cancer researchers. Created to provide a dedicated source of funding for emerging clinician and scientist leaders, the Sabin Family Fellowship supports groundbreaking research that fuels MD Anderson’s mission to end cancer.

Congratulations to the 2025 Sabin Family Fellowship recipients, 10 early career researchers recognized for their bold, high-impact cancer research.

Thank you to the Sabin Family Fellowship for supporting the next generation of innovators. http://spr.ly/633254IbgR #EndCancer

BRAFV600E-Driven Lung Tumorigenesis Requires Ligand-Mediated Activation of ERBB Receptor Signaling Secretion of ligands of the human epidermal growth factor (EGFR) family of receptors or erythroblastic leukemia viral oncogene family (ERBB1-4) is a feature common to many cancer cells. However, our u...

I am thrilled to share that the first preprint from my lab is now available on bioRxiV! In this study, our team elucidates the role of autocrine ligands in the aberrant behavior of oncogene-driven lung cancer.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Kicking off our journey on BlueSky! We're excited to share updates and connect with you. Follow us and help us get the word out! For more information about the Center for Immunology, go to our website: immunology.umn.edu

Excited to share this preprint: In trial led by @michaelpelusomd.bsky.social and Steve Deeks, combination immunotherapy=>high rate of HIV control (low VL) after ART pause. @demisandel.bsky.social in our lab found control associated with robust CD8+ T cell proliferation early in response to rebound.

Different injection routes and fluorophores affect anti-CD45.2 antibody leukocyte labeling @jmschenkel.bsky.social @jimmunol.bsky.social @thenatcat.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/jimm...

I am very grateful for the team we have and look forward to getting the next few of these out the door! We are not done yet! Though it may be a hot minute before the next one comes out. Hopefully pre-prints soon at least! Stay tuned! 11/end

We believe these data will be food for thought for folks interested in using our in vivo labeling. And maybe just a fun read for folks who are lymphatic drainage enthusiasts. Big congrats to the lab for closing out our second paper! 10/n

In short, BB700 was the big winner. It continuously labeled for over 6 hours in vivo (crazy right???). Applying it to a transplantable tumor model, we found we could identify roughly 7-fold more tumor specific CD8s that had recently migrated compared to IV administration. 9/n

Because antibody could be found in the plasma for a while, we speculated we could try and find fluorophores that were capable of labeling at low concentrations. This may provide an opportunity to extend the labeling window for rare events! So that’s what we did with serial dilution experiments. 8/n

We next developed a homegrown ELISA to quantify circulating CD45.2 IV and IP antibodies. We saw that IP anti-CD45.2 concentration gradually increased over an hour, while IV disappeared. 7/n

Moreover, when we examined leukocyte labeling in blood contiguous compartments like the red pulp of the spleen, liver, and bone marrow, we found that IP antibody labeling intensity increased over the course of an hour, suggesting that labeling was continuously happening. 6/n

We find that IP injection of anti-CD45.2 antibody does not label cells in the blood as quickly as an IV injection (duh, I know! But still!). IV injection labels all circulating cells within a minute. Whereas we do not get full labeling by IP injection for at least 10 minutes. 5/n

Biodistribution of Antibodies After Intraperitoneal or Intravenous Injection and Effect of Carbohydrate Modifications2 Abstract. These studies were designed to improve the strategy for intraperitoneal immunotherapy of human ovarian carcinoma with monoclonal antibodies (MAbs

There are a good number of studies looking at this, dating way back to the 40s and 50s. This one from the 80s is particularly well done in my opinion (academic.oup.com/jnci/article...). Don’t feel like reading? IP and IV are different! 4/n

Have you ever wondered about how injecting antibodies via intravenous (IV) or intraperitoneal (IP) injection differs? As a field, we often use IP injection for antibody treatments, and I have always found this to be interesting to think through how IP vs IV injectioun routes may be different. 3/n

One of our big limitations was that it was hard to track rare migration events due to a limited labeling window. More on that in a second. 2/n

I am pleased to announce that our newest story is officially out at @jimmunol.bsky.social ! academic.oup.com/jimmunol/adv...
This is an immediate follow up to the lab’s first paper from last year. We again thank @jimmunol.bsky.social for a smooth, efficient, and wonderfully fair review process. 1/n

An antibody–toxin conjugate targeting CD47 linked to the bacterial toxin listeriolysin O for cancer immunotherapy Nature Cancer - Schrank et al. report the design and characterization of an antibody–toxin conjugate targeting CD47, promoting anti-tumor immunity in preclinical cancer models.

Our newest article is online @naturecancer.bsky.social A new antibody drug conjugate that doesn’t kill tumor cells but rely on immune system to eradicate cancer. @bettykimmdphd.bsky.social @mdanderson.bsky.social

Venous-plexus-associated lymphoid hubs support meningeal humoral immunity - Nature Dural-associated lymphoid tissues are lymphoid structures around vascular hubs in the dura mater that sample antigens and rapidly support humoral immune responses after local ...

Dorian McGavern at NIH had a paper last year using them - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Give the grant-writing monkeys another banana You’re probably familiar with the concept that if you had a million monkeys typing on a million computers for a million years, you would eventually get Sha

My last editorial in @ImmunoHorizons the little @immunologyaai.bsky.social journal that could. In this commentary I discuss some of the challenges facing academia.

academic.oup.com/immunohorizo...

Building Cure at the Seattle Children's Research Institute

Super excited to announce that the Joag Lab will officially open at @UW, @SCRI in March 2025! We will study the interplay between memory T cells and stromal, humoral, and innate immunity in mucosal tissues. researcherprofiles.seattlechildrens.org/Vineet.Joag. Hiring a technician and a postdoc!

Keep your eyes peeled for #2 (jimmunol.bsky.social). And submitted our first big kid grants. Hoping for some kindness from reviewers... Very excited to see what things will look like in another year! What a whirlwind of a job - 2 years have flown by! Feeling both lucky and privileged.

Longitudinal Intravascular Antibody Labeling Identified Regulatory T Cell Recruitment as a Therapeutic Target in a Mouse Model of Lung Cancer Key Points. IV anti-CD45.2 label lasts for 3 days and tracks leukocyte migration to tissue.There is continuous innate and adaptive leukocyte migration in a

39 rotations around the sun! And what a year it's been. The lab has doubled in size. We had our first (3!!!) graduate students and post docs join the lab. We had both our first and second lab papers EVER accepted - the first is out in print... so check it out -(journals.aai.org/jimmunol/art...).

See here for the zoom link registration - mdacc.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Attention physician scientists! Are you interested in applying for a K08? Of course you are! I will be part of a NIH broadcasted information session featuring myself and another K08 awardee, as well as a reviewer from a K08 study section in January. See the attached flyer! And please repost!

Graphical summary of our paper. In mice, prior lower airway exposure to diverse inflammatory stimuli, including chronic bacterial infections such as M. tuberculosis, acute bacterial infections such as pulmonary S. aureus, viral infections such as Influenza A, type-II allergic responses such as the OVA-Alum model, activation of pulmonary TLR9 by CpG or pulmonary TLR1/2 by Pam3CSK4 leads to reduced viral burden upon subsequent infection with SARS-CoV-2 (SCV2). (2) This SCV2 restriction occurs prior to induction of SCV2-specific adaptive immune responses and is mediated through innate immune responses, including the induction of IFN-I, TNFα and IL-1 and sustained changes to the TRM (Tissue resident macrophage) cellular compartment and the pulmonary epithelium. (3) Innate cytokine and TLR signaling to both recruited immune cells and the pulmonary epithelium creates a microenvironment in the lung that limits early replication of SCV2. IFN-I signaling to pulmonary ECs (epithelial cells) increases expression of interferon-stimulated genes, that likely cell-intrinsically limit viral replication. TNF- or IL-1 suppress SCV2 independently of IFN-I signaling. TNF acts exclusively through radio-resistant cell types such as the lung epithelium, whereas IL-1 affords control both direct and indirectly, through either stromal and hematopoietic cell types, to restrict overall early SCV2 burden.

Best #Nikolaus 🎅! Our paper on how the 🫁 microenvironment can shape #innate immunity against #viruses is out @sciimmunology.bsky.social This was a herculean effort brilliantly led by @pauljbaker.bsky.social who singlehandedly established the model in the lab during the pandemic. 🧪 #Immunosky 1/9

Sing Sing Way at Cincinnati Children’s is a great scientist and collaborator!

Next-generation combination approaches for immune checkpoint therapy - Nature Immunology In this Review, Sharma and colleagues describe the current landscape of combination therapies and discuss requirements for the development of effective combination strategies.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sharing our latest review article to highlight the importance of appropriately developing combination strategies for immune checkpoint therapy. Grateful for working with 3 brilliant scientists: Sangeeta Goswami, Kristen Pauken & Linghua Wang