Matthew Woodruff
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About Matthew
While Woodruff has a great interest in public policy, his formal training is as an immunology bench researcher specializing in vaccination response. Immune responses to vaccination are highly complex, but follow a strict set of rules that guide the development of a protective immune response. His research seeks to understand those rules in detail, and apply that understanding to the development of increasingly effective vaccines in the future.
In addition to bench research, Woodruff has been involved in a number of scientific outreach efforts attempting to direct high-level scientific knowledge towards a lay-audience. Recently, this interest in scientific outreach has led to an interest, and subsequent involvement in vaccine policy debate.
Contributions
No Jargon Podcast
In the News
Publications
Discusses how the immune system responds preferentially to particular antigenic-epitopes contained within complex immunogens, such as proteins or microbes. Summarizes how results offer mechanistic insights into B cell competition during an immune response and suggest vaccination strategies against HIV, influenza, and dengue.
Explores how severe SARS-CoV-2 infection is linked to the presence of autoantibodies against multiple targets, including phospholipids and type-I interferons. Identifies autoreactive antibodies as a common feature of severe COVID-19, identifying biomarkers of tolerance breaks that may indicate aggressive immunomodulation.
Elaborates on performing a detailed characterization of B cell responses through high-dimensional flow cytometry to reveal substantial heterogeneity in both effector and immature populations. Studies how critically ill patients displayed hallmarks of extrafollicular B cell activation and shared B cell repertoire features previously described in autoimmune settings.
Discusses how Dendritic cells (DCs) are well established as potent antigen-presenting cells critical to adaptive immunity. Demonstrates an unexpected stimulatory role for LNDCs where they are capable of rapidly locating viral antigen, driving early activation of T cell populations, and independently establishing functional immune response.
Demonstrates that immunization of mice with MF59 or its mimetic AddaVax (AV) plus soluble antigen results in robust antigen-specific antibody and CD8 T cell responses in lymph nodes and non-lymphoid tissues. Illustrates how immunization triggered rapid RIPK3-kinase dependent necroptosis in the lymph node which peaked at 6 hr, followed by a sequential wave of apoptosis.
Supplies a comprehensive overview of human immune tolerance checkpoints with associated mechanisms of enforcement, and highlight current and future methodologies which are likely to benefit future studies into the mechanisms that become defective in human autoimmune conditions.
Summarizes how significant insights have been gained into the establishment of immune response within secondary lymphoid organs, particularly in draining lymph nodes. Reveals while established techniques such as confocal imaging and intravital multi-photon microscopy have proven invaluable, they provide limited insight into the architectural and structural context in which these responses occur.