Haitao Wen
Hometown: Shandong, China

Contact Info:
haiwen@umich.edu

Mentor:
Steven L. Kunkel, Ph.D.

Undergraduate Information:
MS, Pathology and Pathophysiology
Shandong University School of Medicine
Jinan, Shandong, China

Research Interests:

The role of CCR6 in severe sepsis.

My project is mainly focused on the effect of the chemokine receptor CCR6 in both the acute and late phase immune responses following severe sepsis. CCR6 knockout mice are protected in the cecal ligation and puncture model of sepsis. The systemic inflammatory response, a hallmark of severe sepsis and the most common reason of death in septic patients, is drastically reduced in these animals, indicating that CCR6 plays a central role in promoting the amplification of the immune response after severe sepsis. My future research will involve investigating the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in this process. I will also explore the immunosuppression induced by severe sepsis utilizing the Schistosoma mansoni egg-induced granuloma model as a secondary challenge.