Scott Kitchen, PhD

Dr. Scott Kitchen's research interests are focused on investigating the effects of viral infection, as well as other cellular abnormalities, on human hematopoiesis and on exploring ways to correct defects that exist in immunity to viral and cellular antigens. The human immune system is normally fastidious in controlling the environmental assaults that the body receives every day. However, there are many instances where the immune response is ineffective in clearing infection or cancerous cells. Kitchen's laboratory is interested in understanding the mechanisms that limit the immune systems' ability to clear infection or cancer and in developing ways that augment these responses. Specifically, they are investigating the role of the CD4 molecule in multilineage hematopoiesis and in cellular responses, particularly in the context of HIV infection. They are also interested in developing gene therapy-based approaches to engineer human hematopoietic stem cells to reconstitute and/or enhance immune responses following their development into mature cells that specifically target HIV infection as well as other viral and cellular antigens. In addition, his laboratory is interested in the development of mouse/human chimeric models that allow the characterization of human hematopoiesis and engineered immunity in a surrogate in vivo host.

Kitchen SG, Levin BR, Bristol G, Rezek V, Kim S, Aguilera-Sandoval C, Balamurugan A, Yang OO, Zack JA. In Vivo Suppression of HIV by Antigen Specific T Cells Derived from Engineered Hematopoietic Stem Cells. PLoS Pathog. 2012 Apr;8(4):e1002649. Epub 2012 Apr 12.

Kitchen SG, Shimizu S, An DS. Stem cell-based anti-HIV gene therapy. Virology. 2011 Mar 15;411(2):260-72. Epub 2011 Jan 17.

Kitchen SG, Bennett M, Galic Z, Kim J, Xu Q, Young A, Lieberman A, Joseph A, Goldstein H, Ng H, Yang O, Zack JA. Engineering antigen-specific T cells from genetically modified human hematopoietic stem cells in immunodeficient mice. PLoS One. 2009 Dec 7;4(12):e8208.

Galic Z, Kitchen SG, Subramanian A, Bristol G, Marsden MD, Balamurugan A, Kacena A, Yang O, Zack JA. Generation of T lineage cells from human embryonic stem cells in a feeder free system. Stem Cells. 2009 Jan;27(1):100-7.

Kitchen SG, Whitmire JK, Jones NR, Galic Z, Kitchen CM, Ahmed R, Zack JA. The CD4 molecule on CD8+ T lymphocytes directly enhances the immune response to viral and cellular antigens. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Mar 8;102(10):3794-9. Epub 2005 Feb 24.