Alexander L. Dent, PhD

Bio

I grew up in Los Angeles CA and I did my undergraduate studies at UCLA. I did my doctoral studies in immunology at UC San Diego. I then did a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institutue at the NIH in Besthesda, MD. I joined IUSM as a tenure track faculty member in 1998.

Overall, I have an extensive background and training in molecular and cellular immunology. Throughout my career I have developed several important transgenic and knockout mouse models that have been widely used by various labs and in multiple high profile publications. 

As an independent investigator, I have long been interested in understanding the control of immune responses by the transcriptional repressor Bcl6. 

Overall Bcl6 regulates B and T cell differentiation and acts in multiple cell types as a critical repressor of inflammation. Bcl6 also is an oncogene in non-Hodgkin's B cell lymphoma.

In recent years we have focused on the regulation of the antibody response by cells that depend on Bcl6 for their function. Bcl6 specifically promotes the development of T Follicular Helper (TFH) cells, a T helper cell subset that resides in the Germinal Center and is required for the selection of B cells that produce high affinity antibody. Bcl6 is also required for the development of T Follicular Repressor (TFR) cells, which control the antibody response in collaboration with TFH cells.

We have developed a conditional knockout mouse for Bcl6, which has facilitated the analysis of both TFH cell and TFR cell function in vivo. These mouse strains have allowed us to make several new observations about both TFH and TFR cell function in immune responses. We are interested in the regulation of IgE and food allergy responses by TFH and TFR cells. Most recently we have been investigating how TFR cells regulate the IgA response, particularly the anti-gut commensal IgA response.