# T follicular helper (Tfh) CD4+ T cell, germinal center, and antibody response dysfunction in human recurrent tonsillitis

> **NIH NIH U19** · LA JOLLA INSTITUTE FOR IMMUNOLOGY · 2021 · $5,006,994

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Overall Component
Vaccines are one of the most cost effective and extraordinarily successful medical interventions. Most of those
vaccines depend on CD4 T+ cells and their help to B cells. Our understanding of in vivo, specific human CD4+ T
cell responses to pathogens remains hazy, due to the complexity of the biology, the rarity of the cells, relatively
inaccessible tissue localization, and technical challenges of identifying specific CD4+ T cells. Therefore, our
approach to this serious problem has been to develop multiple new techniques to study human CD4+ T cells
over the past several years. While CD4+ T cell-dependent antibody responses have been the source of protection
for most licensed vaccines (Project 1), there is a very good argument to be made that many of the diseases for
which we do not have successful vaccines require adaptive immune responses beyond antibodies for protection
(Projects 2 and 3). The three Projects proposed here vigorously pursue an understanding of the mechanisms
regulating human anti-pathogen CD4+ T cells, linked by new experimental approaches.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10366647
- **Project number:** 3U19AI142742-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** LA JOLLA INSTITUTE FOR IMMUNOLOGY
- **Principal Investigator:** Shane P Crotty
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $5,006,994
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-03-11 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10366647

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10366647, T follicular helper (Tfh) CD4+ T cell, germinal center, and antibody response dysfunction in human recurrent tonsillitis (3U19AI142742-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10366647. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*