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Hao Shen, PhD

Emeritus Professor of Microbiology

Department: Microbiology


Graduate Group Affiliations


Contact Information

303C Johnson Pavilion
3610 Hamilton Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: (215) 573-5259
Lab Phone: 215-898-6586
Fax: (215) 573-9068
Email: hshen@pennmedicine.upenn.edu


I3H Keywords

  • Innate and Adaptive Immunity to Pathogens
  • Precision Immunology and Measuring Immune Health

Publications

Pubmed Link


Links


Education

  • B.S.
    Jiangxi Agr University, China, 1983
  • Ph.D.
    University of California at Riverside, 1992

Post-Graduate Training

  • Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Jeff Miller
    UCLA School of Medicine, 1993 - 1996
  • Postdoctoral Fellow / Dr. Rafi Ahmed
    Emory Vaccine Center, Emory University, 2016 - 2017

Description of Research Expertise

Research Interests
Immunity against intracellular, emerging and co-infecting agents.

Key words: T cell responses and memory, bacterial pathogenesis, vaccine.

Description of Research
We have a long-standing interest in basic questions related to generation of effective immune responses, mechanisms of protective immunity, and the establishment of long-term immunological memory. For these basic studies, we have used two well-characterized murine models of infection with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) and Listeria monocytogenes. More recently, we have become interested in viral/bacterial co-infections, which occur frequently in clinics and often result in more severe disease than infection by an individual pathogen. A striking example of this is the high mortality caused by secondary bacterial pneumonia following flu infection. We are: 1) studying how inflammation induced by a bacterial pathogen may affect the host response to a co-infecting viral pathogen and vice versa, 2) investigating the mechanisms of bacterial pathogenesis that contribute to lethal secondary bacterial pneumonia following flu infection, 3) identifying immune mechanisms and protective antigens that provide immunity against co-infection, and 4) examining how these protective mechanisms may be inhibited during co-infection that leads to high mortality and inadequate immunological memory. Through these studies, we have gained new insights into complexity of tripartite interactions between the virus, bacterium and host immune system. Based on our new findings, we are developing novel, combinational vaccine approaches tailored towards co-infection.