Samuel Strober

Clinical Focus

• Immunology and Rheumatology
• Rheumatology

Professional Education

Postdoctoral Advisees

David Hongo Apum, Alexander Filatenkov

Web Site Links

• Strober Lab

Industry Relationships

Stanford is committed to ethical and transparent interactions with our industry partners. It is our policy to disclose payments of $5,000 or more, equity valued at $5,000 or more in a publicly traded company, or any equity in a privately held company, to physicians and scientists employed by Stanford University from companies or other commercial entities with which they interact as part of their professional activities. View Full Information

Research Interests

Our interests are in the area of cellular immunology, and the regulatory interactions between subpopulations of immune cells. In particular, we are interested in the identification, function, and molecular mechanisms by which some subpopulations of lymphocytes amplify the immune response and some suppress it. Investigation into interactions of the cells during the immune response to organ and bone marrow transplants and in autoimmune disease is a major focus of the laboratory research. Developing therapeutic strategies for organ transplantation and autoimmunity based on these principles is a major goal. Specific areas of research are as follows: (i) Immune tolerance to organ and bone marrow transplants: Immune tolerance is recognized to be the paralysis of the immune system in its response to a given antigen, the development of anergy, or antigen-specific suppressor cells. Our research programs are studying these mechanisms at the cellular and molecular levels in laboratory animals and humans that are made tolerant to foreign organ or bone marrow transplants. (ii) Mechanisms of autoimmunity: Many autoimmune diseases represent a breakdown of immune tolerance to self-antigens. The mechanisms by which 1) animals develop tolerance to self during ontogeny, 2) tolerance is broken in adult life resulting in autoimmune diseases, and 3) tolerance can be reestablished after the development of autoimmune disease are the subjects of investigation. Our laboratory is involved in identifying those cells involved in the induction and maintenance of immune tolerance with regard to their surface receptors, effector functions, and the nature of secreted molecules which mediate their function.

Clinical Trials

• Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Using TLI/ATG for Older Patients with Hematologic Malignancies Recruiting
• Allogeneic Transplantation From Related Haploidentical Donors in Older Patients with Indolent Hematologic Malignancies Recruiting

Publications

• Differences in Bcl-2 expression by T-cell subsets alter their balance after in vivo irradiation to favor CD4+Bcl-2hi NKT cells. Yao Z, Liu Y, Jones J, Strober S. Eur J Immunol. 2009; 39 (3): 763-75
• Ineffective Vaccination against Solid Tumors Can Be Enhanced by Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. Filatenkov A, Müller AM, Tseng WW, Dejbakhsh-Jones S, Winer D, Luong R, Shizuru JA, Engleman EG, Strober S. J Immunol. 2009; 183 (11): 7196-7203
• Host natural killer T cells induce an interleukin-4-dependent expansion of donor CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ T regulatory cells that protects against graft-versus-host disease. Pillai AB, George TI, Dutt S, Strober S. Blood. 2009; 113 (18): 4458-67
• TLI and ATG conditioning with low risk of graft-versus-host disease retains antitumor reactions after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation from related and unrelated donors. Kohrt HE, Turnbull BB, Heydari K, Shizuru JA, Laport GG, Miklos DB, Johnston LJ, Arai S, Weng WK, Hoppe RT, Lavori PW, Blume KG, Negrin RS, Strober S, Lowsky R. Blood. 2009; 114 (5): 1099-109
• Beta-galactosylceramide alters invariant natural killer T cell function and is effective treatment for lupus. Morshed SR, Takahashi T, Savage PB, Kambham N, Strober S. Clin Immunol. 2009; 132 (3): 321-33