Jeffrey Schorey
Professor of Biological Sciences
Office: 129 Galvin Life Sciences
Phone: 574-631-3734
Email: Schorey.1@nd.edu
Areas of Expertise
Immunology and cell biology of mycobacterium; host-cell interactions
A member of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Global Health, Schorey researches whether the development and use of entitles called exosomes, which previous studies have shown to play a role in immune surveillance, might provide a novel approach to developing a tuberculosis vaccine. Earlier work in his lab has shown that these exosomes, which are membrane vesicles, contain mycobacterial as well as host (human or mouse) components and can function to promote a robust immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. Exosomes alone could elicit this response indicating that they contained everything necessary to function as a vaccine. This suggests that exosome vaccines would not require an adjuvant: a major benefit of exosomes over other protein-based vaccines. Schorey is using a mouse model to determine if these exosomes can protect the host against a M. tuberculosis infection and whether they provide better protection than existing tuberculosis vaccines. The long-term goal is to optimize these exosomes as TB vaccines and to develop methodology to produce sufficient quantities of exosomes for clinical testing.
