Research interests lie in Nutritional Immunology, with special focus on the function of vitamin A in the immune system. Vitamin A deficient individuals and laboratory animals do not develop protective antibody responses to vaccination, and have increased incidence and severity of infectious diseases. The inferior antibody responses have been correlated with decreased B lymphocyte clonal expansion, which in turn have been correlated with decreased T helper 2 (Th2) lymphocyte numbers. Current experiments are aimed at identifying the role of vitamin A in differentiation of naive CD4+ T lymphocytes to the Th2 phenotype. In particular, experiments aimed at discovering the role of vitamin A in dendritic cell development, maturation, and antigen-presenting function are currently underway.

Current methodologies being employed:
• in vitro culture of dendritic cells from murine bone marrow stem cells
• flow-cytometric analysis of dendritic cell costimulatory molecule expression
• in vitro T helper lymphocyte differentiation
• analysis of cytokine secretion profiles by ELISA
• DNA micro array analysis of dendritic cell maturation +/- vitamin A
• in vivo dendritic cell characterization in vitamin A sufficient and deficient mice