LOUISIANA: Tulane awarded $3.5 million to study how killer immune cells prevent birth defects
Microbiologist and immunologist Amitinder Kaur of the Tulane National Primate Research Center was awarded a $3.5 million grant to study how specialized immune cells could be used to block a common virus that, in some cases, causes developmental disabilities when transmitted during pregnancy. The grant, awarded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will examine whether cells that naturally kill cytomegalovirus can be introduced in pregnancy to prevent transmission of CMV, which usually has no effect on children but in rare cases can cause cerebral palsy, microcephaly and other conditions.
In mothers with longstanding or chronic CMV, the virus rarely infects the fetus even though the mother is in an immunosuppressed state. The research team seeks to understand what natural killer cells need in order to block transmission of the virus during pregnancy, and how this knowledge could be applied toward future CMV vaccine development.
“Infection with CMV is widespread, and usually occurs without incident,” said Kaur. “It is only when a mother becomes infected with CMV during pregnancy that it can pose a real danger to her fetus, and it is those outcomes that we seek to prevent by better understanding how CMV-infected mothers harness natural killer cells to avoid congenital transmission.”