Abstract
Our skin acts as a crucial immunological barrier, hosting a complex network of immune cells including tissue-resident memory T (TRM) cells. Extensive in vivo data from mouse models suggest that skin TRM cells play a pivotal role in local immune surveillance and can provide significant protection against pathogenic (re-)infection with infectious agents. Therefore, establishing a robust population of protective TRM cells in the skin through vaccination holds promise to improve efficacy against infections using the skin as an entry portal, such as skin-to-skin infections, bite infections, or through arthropods like sandflies, mosquitoes or ticks. To date, however, the differentiation, maintenance and protective function of TRM cells in human skin remains largely unexplored. Using rabies vaccination in humans as a model, my PhD fellowship aims to (i) standardize the isolation of antigen-specific TRM cells for clinical implementation, (ii) identify the optimal vaccination route for their induction, and (iii) broadly phenotype the incited TRM cell in human skin. With a standardized assay and low-invasive biomarkers of skin imprinting, we hope to facilitate its uptake in future trials to validate its role as a novel correlate of protection against infections with the skin as a primary entry point.
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