Leeana completed her PhD in May 2023 with focus on elucidating the role of T1D candidate genes such as PTPN22 and CD226 in disease progression, as well as utilizing bioinformatic approaches to identify novel cell subsets and biomarkers for T1D. Leeana Peters joined the Brusko lab as a first-year undergraduate student and received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship for the 2015-2016 academic year to investigate the CD226/TIGIT axis in regulatory T cells and potential cellular therapy applications.
Leeana is exploring her next endeavor options as a postdoc scientist.
Funding
F31 1F31DK129004-01A1, Multi-modal single cell analysis for investigation of T1D pathogenesis (05/31/2022- 05/31/2024)
T32 DK108736-01A1, Trainee, Atkinson (PI). Single cell sequencing and immune profiling of NOD-CD226KO & human nPOD donor tissue (2022)
Publications
- Brown, ME*, Thirawatananond P*, Peters LD, Kern EJ, Vijay S, Sachs LK, Posgai AL, Brusko MA, Shapiro MR, Mathews CE, Brusko, TM. (2024). Monoclonal Antibody Blockade of CD226 Decreases Spontaneous Diabetes Incidence in the NOD Mouse by Augmenting Treg and Diminishing Effector Functionality. BioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2024.07.16.603756
- Shapiro MR, Peters LD, Brown ME, Cabello-Kindelan C, Posgai AL, Bayer AL, Brusko TM. (2023). Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 Synergizes with IL-2 to Induce Homeostatic Proliferation of Regulatory T Cells. Journal of Immunology. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2200651
- Peters LD, Yeh WI, Arnoletti JM, Brown ME, Posgai AL, Mathews CE, and Brusko TM (2023) Modeling Cell-Mediated Immunity in Human Type 1 Diabetes by Engineering Autoreactive CD8+ T cells. Front. Immunol. 14:1142648. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1142648
- Brown ME, Peters LD, Hanbali SR, Arnoletti JM, Sachs LK, Nguyen KQ, Carpenter EB, Seay HR, Fuhrman CA, Posgai AL, Shapiro MR, and Brusko TM (2022) Human CD4+CD25+CD226– Tregs Demonstrate Increased Purity, Lineage Stability, and Suppressive Capacity Versus CD4+CD25+CD127lo/- Tregs for Adoptive Cell Therapy. Front. Immunol. 13:873560. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.873560
- Li W, Gong M, Park YP, Elshikha AS, Choi SC, Brown J, Kanda N, Yeh WI, Peters L, Titov AA, Teng X, Brusko TM, Morel L. Lupus susceptibility gene Esrrg modulates regulatory T cells through mitochondrial metabolism. JCI Insight. 2021 Jul 22;6(14):e143540. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.143540. PMID: 34156979; PMCID: PMC8410062.
- Perry DJ, Peters LD, Lakshmi PS, Zhang L, Han Z, Wasserfall CH, Mathews CE, Atkinson MA, Brusko TM. Overexpression of the PTPN22 Autoimmune Risk Variant LYP-620W Fails to Restrain Human CD4+ T Cell Activation. J Immunol. 2021 Aug 1;207(3):849-859. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2000708. Epub 2021 Jul 23. PMID: 34301848; PMCID: PMC8323970.
- Shapiro MR, Thirawatananond P, Peters L, Sharp RC, Ogundare S, Posgai AL, Perry DJ, Brusko TM. De-coding genetic risk variants in type 1 diabetes. Immunol Cell Biol. 2021 Jan 22. doi: 10.1111/imcb.12438. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33483996
- L.D. Peters. A.L. Posgai. T.M. Brusko. June 2020. 1663-P: Gene Editing of the Human T-Cell Receptor Locus Enables Optimized In Vitro Testing of Autoreactive T-Cell Function in Type 1 Diabetes. American Diabetes Association. (69). https://doi.org/10.2337/db20-1663-P. Poster Presentation.
- Dean, Joseph W; Peters, Leeana D; Fuhrman, Christopher A; Seay, Howard R; Posgai, Amanda L; Stimpson, Scott E; Brusko, Maigan A; Perry, Daniel J; Yeh, Wen-I; Newby, Brittney N; Haller, Michael J; Muir, Andrew B; Atkinson, Mark A; Mathews, Clayton E; Brusko, Todd M. (2020) Innate inflammation drives NK cell activation to impair Treg activity. Journal of autoimmunity. 108 :102417
- Motwani, K., Peters, L. D., Vliegen, W. H., El-Sayed, A. G., Seay, H. R., Lopez, M. C., … Brusko, T. M. (2020). Human Regulatory T Cells From Umbilical Cord Blood Display Increased Repertoire Diversity and Lineage Stability Relative to Adult Peripheral Blood. Frontiers in Immunology, 11. DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00611
- L. Peters, A. Posgai, T. M. Brusko. (2019). Islet–immune interactions in type 1 diabetes: the nexus of beta cell destruction. Clinical & Experimental Immunology. 198(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/cei.13349
- Seay HR, Putnam AL, Cserny J, Posgai AL, Rosenau EH, Wingard JR, Girard KF, Kraus M, Lares AP, Brown HL, Brown KS, Balavage KT, Peters LD, Bushdorf AN, Atkinson MA, Bluestone JA, Haller MJ, Brusko TM. Expansion of Human Tregs from Cryopreserved Umbilical Cord Blood for GMP-Compliant Autologous Adoptive Cell Transfer Therapy. Mol Ther Methods Clin Dev. 2016 Dec 24;4:178-191. doi: 10.1016/j.omtm.2016.12.003. eCollection 2017 Mar 17. PubMed PMID: 28345003; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5363324