Jason Griffith, MD, PhD
Instructor in Medicine
Academic Interests
I am physician-scientist whose lab is interested in how inflammation is modulated in host tissues in response to severe respiratory viral infection, allergy and injury. In particular, we study how regulatory T cells (Tregs) and other effector T cells interact with tissue stromal cells such as fibroblasts and epithelial cells to suppress innate inflammation and maintain homeostasis. In addition to my research I attend on the lung transplant service and in the medical ICU
Awards and Recognition
Parker B Francis Fellowship 2016
American Lung Association Biomedical Research Grant awardee 2017
NIH K award 2017
Parker B Francis Fellowship Award
A full list of Dr. Griffith's published work can be found on My Bibliography.
More information can be found on Dr. Griffith's Harvard Catalyst Profile.
+Current Projects
- Our lab has found that Treg cells have extensive crosstalk with stromal cells in the lung during influenza infection and that this pathway has profound implications for controlling innate immune responses in the lung and the outcome of infection. One current project is better defining the signals and cytokines that mediate these interactions between cells.
- We are now expanding these observations to other tissues and have exciting preliminary data on the Treg/Stromal cell crosstalk in the homeostatic response to injury in other tissues such as muscle.
- One other project is to better understand how severe infection such as influenza affects Treg function in non-infected tissues. We have found, for instance, that influenza infection of the lung modulates the immune cell population of the muscle. Our lab is currently examining this change in muscle immune cell populations and determining if this contributes to the muscle injury that can occur with severe respiratory viral infection.