Cell Reports, a peer-reviewed scientific journal publishing high-quality papers across the entire life sciences has recently acknowledged the work of the late Professor affiliated with UNIST and included her work entitled “CD8α− Dendritic Cells Induce Antigen-Specific T Follicular Helper Cells Generating Efficient Humoral Immune Responses” in the June 30, 2015 issue.
In this study, the late Professor Yoon Kyung Do (School of Nano-Bioscience and Chemical Engineering), for the first time in history, demonstrated that the CD8α− Dendritic Cell subset can efficiently induce functional antigen-specific Tfh cells to generate both high-quality and high-quantity humoral immune responses.
Through this study, the team discovered the CD8α− Dendritic Cells can be potentially utilized as a preferential target for improving vaccine efficacy in various human diseases.
According to the research team, their research findings provide insights on how DCs influence Tfh cell fate. “We believe that these results, along with future efforts to characterize human DC subset counterpart of CD8a DCs, will provide a rationale to design improved vaccines by enhancing the quality and quantity of antibody responses,” says the research team.
This work has been supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) through grants funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (MSIP) and by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Short Biography
Sunday, July 5, 2015, marks one hundred days since the passing of Yoon Kyung Do, a respected teacher and scientist who impacted hundreds of students during her teaching career at UNIST.
In 2009, Prof. Yoon Kyung Do joined UNIST as an Associate Professor with research and teaching focus in Cellular and Molecular Immunology, Dendritic Cell Immunobiology, and Immunotherapies. At her lab, she worked on various immunological topics, including vaccine development and immune-based therapies.
Prof. Do received her B.Sc. degree in life science from POSTECH and M.S. degree in Molecular Biology from Seoul National University. After she earned her Ph.D. degree of Immunology from Medical College of Virginia in 2003, she continued her postdoctoral training with Dr. Ralph M. Steinman at the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology & Immunology, Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA. Prior to joining UNIST, she served as an Adjunct faculty member at the Rockefeller University.
Journal Reference:
Changsik Shin, Jae-A Han, Hyein Koh, Bongseo Choi, Yongbin Cho, Hyeongmin Jeong, Jea-Sun Ra, Pil Soo Sung, Eui-Cheol Shin, Seongho Ryu, Yoonkyung Do, “CD8α− Dendritic Cells Induce Antigen-Specific T Follicular Helper Cells Generating Efficient Humoral Immune Responses.” Cell Reports, Vol.11, Pages 1929-1940 (June 2015).
