Katherine Horvath
Rm 543, 104 Mason Farm Rd
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Tel: (919) 843-3126
Fax: (919) 966-9863
Education
Doctorate of Philosophy
Curriculum in Toxicology
Research Advisor: Dr. Ilona Jaspers
Date of Matriculation: August 2006
Bachelor of Science in Engineering
University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, April 2006
Awards
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Med into Grad Program for Translational Medicine
Dissertation
TBA
Advisor: Dr. Ilona Jaspers, Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma and Lung Biology
Current Research
Air pollution exposure and viral infections are both common causes of asthma exacerbations. Dendritic cells (DCs) patrol the epithelium for foreign antigens, like the influenza virus, to present to T helper cells and act as an important bridge between the innate and adaptive immune system. Pollutants, like diesel exhaust, have been shown to induce the production of immune mediators from epithelial cells that promote DC maturation. Through epithelial cell and DC interaction, DCs have the potential to significantly modulate the inflammatory response, from both pollutant and viral exposure, by altering epithelial cell expression of molecules including TLR3, RANTES, and IFNβ. Single cell culture models are unable to study this interaction. A co-culture model of monocyte derived dendritic cells and differentiated human airway epithelial cells has been developed to examine potential interactions between these two cell types in the setting of respiratory viral infection and air pollution exposure. Co-culture with DCs appears to modulate baseline expression of TLR3 in epithelial cells, which has been shown to increase in epithelial cells exposed to diesel exhaust particles prior to viral infection. These cell-cell interactions may shed new light on the mechanisms of viral and/or pollutant induced exacerbations of asthma.
Personal Interests
Cooking, running, wine tasting, reading, watching silly television and movies, button collection