Neutrophils are among the immune system’s first responders to injury or infection and play a crucial role in the body’s inflammatory response to trauma. Traumatic injuries impair the neutrophil capacity to fight infections while at the same time promote tissue damage that contributes to immune dysfunction.

Sofia de Oliveira, Ph.D., has received a five-year, $2.1 million National Institutes of Health grant to investigate mechanisms by which traumatic injury affects neutrophil function. Using zebrafish trauma models, her laboratory will study how neutrophils prioritize different injuries in cases of multiple trauma, whether pre-existing, low-grade chronic inflammation alters neutrophil response to trauma, and whether neutrophils are reprogrammed at different injury sites. This research may lead to strategies for modifying the neutrophil response to injury and trauma to improve patients’ outcomes.

Dr. de Oliveira is professor of developmental and molecular biology and of medicine at Einstein. (1R35GM147416-01)