Dr. Balyn Zaro, PhD

We have found that bacteria can mimic a protein used by mammalian cells, including cancer cells, to evade the mammalian immune system. These proteins are called 'don't eat me' signals since they prevent immune cells from ingesting and destroying the cell that expresses them. In this proposal we aim to characterize the domains of the protein required for this mimicry, determine if other known 'don't eat me' signal mimics are also expressed by bacteria, and search for novel 'don't eat me' signals that may be used by both cancer cells and bacteria.