Kellner Lab
The Kellner Lab focuses on patient-relevant research and investigates immune deficiency and dysregulation and the development of chronic lung disease in patients with immune deficiency and dysregulation. We are actively involved in basic, translational, and clinical research to understand the mechanisms of different immune deficiencies and how they may change over time. Our research bridges pediatrics and internal medicine, allergy and immunology and immunodeficiency / immune regulatory specialties, and clinical practice and research.
We are working to find new treatments and cures for primary immune deficiencies with the Primary Immune Deficiency Program at Cincinnati Children’s, whose research efforts are made possible with the support and involvement of patients. Immune deficiency has been classically regarded as a pediatric disease, but advances in both treatment and screening have transformed our understanding of the field and resulted in an increasing patient population of adults with immune deficiency. Thus, there is an emerging need for trained clinical and research experts in the area of adult immune deficiency. The adult immune deficiency clinics fulfill unmet patient needs and provide the basis for developing, related research programs. The ability to expand the immune deficiency cohort of patients from pediatric through adulthood will support more studies in the future, including natural history studies.
The Kellner Lab also investigates common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) and granulomatous lymphocytic interstitial lung disease in the context of treatment, monitoring, and understanding the pathophysiology. For this research, we leverage the United States Immunodeficiency Database (USIDNET) and the Rare Lung Diseases Consortium (RLDC, U54HL127672, PI Trapnell), which is a part of the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN), an initiative of the Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR), NCATS. The RLDC is funded through a collaboration between the NCATS and the NHLBI and has large, national cohorts for patient-relevant research.
Cellular Defects in CVID with Chronic Lung Disease
As published in the Journal of Clinical Immunology, patients with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) and chronic lung disease may be more likely to have lower peripheral T cell counts and complications of those cellular defects compared with patients with CVID without chronic lung disease. Read more about the study.
