Isabel Risch

Program: Computational and Systems Biology

Current advisor: Malachi Griffith, PhD

Undergraduate university: Washington University, 2020

Enrollment year: 2022

Research summary
I study T-cell receptors from patients with HLA-B27+ spondyloarthropathies in order to understand what drives their disease.

Acute Anterior Uveitis (AAU) and Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) are autoimmune diseases associated with Human Leukocyte Antigen B27 (HLA-B27). Although this association was observed over 50 years ago, the mechanism remains unclear. Recent studies have implicated autoreactive CD8+ T cells in the pathogenesis of AAU and AS. Autoreactive CD8+ T cells share TCR sequences and antigen specificity, such as to the bacterial antigen YeiH and various autoantigens. The transcriptional landscape of this cell population, however, remains poorly defined. Moreover, whether healthy individuals may harbor pathogenic CD8+ T cells without developing AAU or AS is unknown. Using single-cell RNA-seq and TCR-seq and various computational and bioinformatics techniques, I am attempting to fill in the gaps in our knowledge about these cells and their role in disease.

Graduate publications