Mathew Lab earns travel award to present at AAI
Dr. Stephen Mathew, associate professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Genetics,
and PhD student Alexsis Garcia were awarded travel grants from the American Association
of Immunologists (AAI) to present their research this month at the Immunology 2025
conference in Honolulu, Hawaii.
They presented Dr. Mathew’s research on pediatric leukemia, which explores the immune receptor expression and function of NK cells in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
In this project they analyzed the racial/ethnic differences in the expression of immune receptors and how they may influence the risk of relapse of the disease in pediatric ALL patients. Racial/ethnic differences were observed in the expression of a couple of NK cell receptors, and they were highly expressed in patients that had a very-high risk of relapse of the disease. Changes in the expression of immune receptors across racial/ethnic and risk-stratified groups may offer valuable insights into how immune cells monitor pediatric ALL.