Senior Fellow

Department of Immunology
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington  USA

Dr. Suthar is currently applying an innovative systems biology approach to understand the complex and dynamic signaling networks that control innate immunity to virus infection.Using a combination of high-throughput technology, computational analysis, and pathway-specific modeling, these studies are aimed at revealing tissue and cell-specific gene regulatory signaling networks and antiviral effector genes that control virus infection and regulate innate antiviral immunity.

Dr. Mehul Suthar received his Ph.D. in 2007 in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill under the supervision of Dr. Mark Heise. Dr. Suthar’s graduate research focused on defining the molecular determinants of alphavirus pathogenesis.  Through these studies, he identified an important virulence determinant that regulates induction of type I interferon responses of the infected cell.

Dr. Suthar continued on with his interests in studying viral pathogenesis and is currently a Senior Fellow in the Department of Immunology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Gale, Jr.  His research has focused on defining the host innate immune response programs that control West Nile virus infection. His recent work, now published in PLoS Pathogens, demonstrated the importance of the RIG-I like receptor (RLR) signaling pathway in eliciting effective and integrated innate and adaptive immune responses to WNV infection. The key findings from this study demonstrate that: 1) RLR signaling through IPS-1 is required for triggering an innate response to WNV in the key target cells of infection; and 2) loss of RLR signaling causes dysregulation of cell-mediated and humoral adaptive immune responses, characterized by uncontrolled expansion of virus-specific CD8+ T cells, reduced T-regulatory cells, and altered humoral immunity. This study revealed that the RLR signaling pathway mediates an important interface in coordinating innate and adaptive immunity against viral infection by regulating both the quantity and quality of the immune response. Dr. Suthar has continued to study the role of the RLR pathway in directing immunity to WNV infection, focusing on the roles of each RLR within the RLR family, including RIG-I, MDA5, and LGP2.  In addition, Dr. Suthar has published a number of collaborative studies describing the role of innate immune signaling factors, including IRF-1, IRF-3, IRF-5, IRF-7, TLR3, MyD88, and NOS2, in regulating WNV infection and immunity.