Laura M. Snell, PhD

Dr. Laura Snell received her B.Sc. in Microbiology and Immunology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She completed her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Tania Watts at the University of Toronto studying the role of costimulatory receptors in enhancing T cell responses to influenza infection. Following her PhD, Dr. Snell then became interested in how chronic viral infections drove the dysfunction of T cell responses. She went on to do postdoctoral work under the mentorship of Dr. David Brooks both at UCLA and then at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center when the lab moved to Toronto. In 2021 Dr. Laura Snell became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Indiana University School of Medicine. The Snell laboratory studies the molecular and cellular regulation of antiviral T cell responses during chronic viral infection. We are interested in how the immunosuppressive environment generated by a chronic viral infection alters or skews T cell responses, and how these can be restored by immunotherapy to purge infection.

1.   Snell LM, Xu W, Abd Rabbo D, Boukhaled G, Guo M, MacLeod BL, Elsaesser HJ, Hezaveh K, Alsahafi N, Lukhele S, Neejat S, Ramanandan P, Epelman S, McGaha TL and Brooks DG. Dynamic CD4 T cell heterogeneity defines subset-specific suppression and PDL1-blockade driven functional restoration in chronic infection. 2021. Nat. Immunol. Dec;22(12):1524-1537.

2.  Snell LM, MacLeod BL, Law JC, Osokine I, Elsaesser HJ, Hezaveh K, Dickson RJ, Gavin MA, Guidos CJ, McGaha TL, Brooks DG. CD8+ T cell priming in established chronic viral infection preferentially directs differentiation of memory-like cells for sustained immunity. 2018. Immunity 49(4):678-694.

3.  Snell LM, McGaha TL, Brooks DG. Type I Interferon in Chronic Virus Infection and Cancer. 2017. Trends Immunol Aug;38(8):542-557.

4.  Snell LM, Osokine I, Yamada D.H., De la Fuente, J.R., Elsaesser, H.J., and Brooks, D.G. Overcoming CD4 Th1 Cell Fate Restrictions to Sustain Antiviral CD8 T Cells and Control Persistent Virus Infection. 2016. Cell Rep 16, 3286-3296.

5. Ng C, Snell LM, Brooks DG, Oldstone MB. Networking at the level of host immunity: immune cell interactions during persistent viral infections. 2013. Cell Host Microbe. 13(6):652-64.