Aaron Whiteley 2022
Assistant Professor

Office: JSCBB B221
Lab: JSCBB B255

Education

PhD: Infectious Diseases and Immunity; Advisor: Dr. Daniel Portnoy. University of California Berkeley, 2010-2016
Postdoctoral Fellow: Microbiology; Advisors: Dr. John Mekalanos and Dr. Philip Kranzusch. Harvard Medical School, 2016-2019

Areas of Expertise

Bacteriology, Bioinformatics & computational biology, Cell signaling, Electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM), Genetics & chemical biology, Innate immunity, Nucleic acids, Infectious disease, Proteins & enzymology, Structural biology, Virology

Awards and Honors

  • 2023听ASM Award for Early Career Basic Research 鈥 American Society for Microbiology
  • 2023听Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences听Award听鈥撎齈ew Charitable Trusts
  • 2023听Mentor Award Honorable听Mention听鈥撎齍ndergraduate Research Opportunities Program, CU 麻豆影院
  • 2022 NIH Director鈥檚 New Innovator听Award听(DP2)听鈥撎齆ational Institutes of Health (DP2AT012346)
  • 2022听Boettcher Investigator and Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awardee听鈥撎鼴oettcher Foundation
  • 2018 Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow听Award听鈥撎齅icrobiology & Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School
  • 2017 Postdoctoral Fellowship听鈥撎齁ane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research
  • 2015听Richard and Mary Finkelstein Travel Grant and Young Investigator Oral Presentation 鈥撎鼳merican Society for Microbiology, ASM General Meeting 2015
  • 2012听Graduate Research Fellowship Award听鈥撎齆ational Science Foundation

How does the immune system detect a pathogen?

Our research group is broadly interested in how bacteria and viruses interact with, and often subvert, their host鈥檚 immune system.听An infection can be viewed like a race. The host immune system has to detect an invading pathogen and respond, while听pathogens like bacteria and viruses must evade detection and replicate. Who wins that race determines the outcome of disease.

Host鈥損athogen dynamics are shaped by the exchange of chemical signals between invaders and their victims (the host). In听mammals, detection of pathogenic bacteria and viruses starts with receptors of the innate immune system that sense microbe-derived chemicals. Innate immune signaling activates the rest of the immune system to sterilize the infection. Identification of听ligands (chemical signals) that activate the innate immune system has led to a better understanding of vaccines and the design of听novel adjuvants. What鈥檚 more, some of these chemicals activate the immune system to fight cancer.

Our lab studies the innate immune system, the microbe-derived ligands important for immune activation, and general bacterial听pathogenesis. We are particularly focused on immune pathways that use nucleotide second messengers to amplify signaling.听One of the most exciting characteristics of these pathways is that they are found in both animal and bacterial cells. The same听molecular machinery that allows eukaryotes to respond to DNA viruses (called the cGAS-STING pathway), is also found in听bacteria. cGAS-like enzymes in bacteria are important for defense against to phages. These findings provide a highly tractable听and rapid model system for studying the cGAS-STING pathway.

The finding of antiviral genes from bacteria that are homologous to antiviral genes in humans has led to the unexpected听hypothesis that early eukaryotes must have assimilated and repurposed bacterial phage defense genes. This new paradigm in听evolution of the immune system establishes bacterium-phage interactions as a relevant model system. Further, our lab is听interested in identifying other elements of the human immune system that can be found in bacteria, understanding molecular听mechanisms of phage detection, and distilling these findings identify generalizable aspects of immune systems.听

The ultimate goal of our work is to better understand human immune signaling and inform the development of therapeutics,听contributing to the worldwide goal of defeating human pathogens and cancers.

厂别别听听for a full and up-to-date list

  • Kibby EM, Conte AN, Burroughs AM, Nagy TA, Vargas JA, Whalen LA, Aravind L, Whiteley AT. Bacterial NLR-related proteins protect against phage. Cell. 2023 May 25;186(11):2410-2424.e18. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.04.015. PMID: 37160116.
  • Ledvina HE*, Ye Q*, Gu Y, Sullivan AE, Quan Y, Lau RK, Zhou H, Corbett KD鈥, Whiteley AT鈥. (*equal contribution, 鈥燾o-cor. author) An E1鈥揈2 fusion protein primes antiviral immune signalling in bacteria.听Nature. 2023 Apr;616(7956):319-325. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05647-4. PMID: 36755092.
  • Whiteley AT, Eaglesham JB, de Oliveira Mann CC, Morehouse BR, Lowey B, Nieminen EA, Danilchanka O, King DS, Lee ASY, Mekalanos JJ*, Kranzusch PJ*. (*co-cor. author) Bacterial cGAS-like enzymes synthesize diverse nucleotide signals. Nature. 2019 Mar;567(7747):194-199. PMC6544370.
  • Zhou W*, Whiteley AT*, de Oliveira Mann CC, Morehouse BR, Nowak RP, Fischer ES, Gray NS, Mekalanos JJ, Kranzusch PJ. (*equal contribution) Structure of the Human cGAS-DNA Complex Reveals Enhanced Control of Immune Surveillance. Cell. 2018 Jul 12;174(2):300-311.e11. PMC6084792.