Stephanie Eisenbarth, M.D.,Ph.D.

Stephanie Eisenbarth is Chief of Allergy and Immunology, and Director of the new Center for Human Immunobiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Her research focuses on defining the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate antibody responses. In the allergy field, her lab discovered a new T follicular helper cell that drives IgE responses to allergens. This has important implications for potentially altering and tracking the inappropriate immune response to food allergens.

Defining the cellular and molecular mechanisms that
regulate antibody responses

At FASI Stephanie Eisenbarth’s lab is investigating the role of gut IgA in food allergy. To understand the role of gut IgA her lab is using both human samples and mouse models to determine whether food-specific gut IgA impacts IgE sensitization and/or anaphylactic reaction to food allergens, defining the sub-anatomic location and clonal relationship between IgA versus IgE B cells induced to food antigens, and identifying the dendritic cell requirements for food-specific IgA versus IgE production in the gut. The results of this research could inform new therapeutic and diagnostic strategies for food allergy.

Featured Publications:

Gertie JA, Zhang G, Liu EG, Hoyt LR, Yin X, Xu L, Long LL, Soldatenko A, Gowthaman U, Williams A, Eisenbarth SC. Oral anaphylaxis to peanut in a mouse model is associated with gut permeability but not with Tlr4 or Dock8 mutations. J Allergy Clin Immunol. In press.

Yin, X., Chen, S., Eisenbarth SC. Dendritic Cell Regulation of T Helper Cells. Annu Rev Immunology 2021 April; 39(1):759-790. doi.org/10.1146/annurev-immunol-101819-025146

Zhang B., Liu E., Gertie J.A, Joseph J., Xu L., Pinker E., Waizman D.A., Catanzaro J., Hamza K., Lahl K., Gowthaman U., Eisenbarth SC. Divergent T follicular helper cell requirement for IgA and IgE production to peanut during allergic sensitization. Science Immunology, 2020 May 8;5(47). PMID: 32385053.

Liu, EG, Yin, X, Swaminathan, A & Eisenbarth, SC. Antigen-Presenting Cells in Food Tolerance and Allergy. Frontiers in Immunology. Front. Immunol. 11:616020 (2020). PMID: 33488627; PMCID: PMC7821622.

Gowthaman U., Chen J.S., Zhang B., Flynn W.F., Lu Y., Song W., Joseph J., Gertie J.A., Xu L., Collet M.A., Grassmann J, Simoneau T., Chiang D., Berin M.C., Craft J.E., Weinstein J.S., Williams A., Eisenbarth SC. Identification of a T follicular helper cell subset that drives anaphylactic IgE. Science. 2019 Aug 1. PMID:31371561; PMCID: PMC6901029.