Dr. Junqueira’s research focuses on cell biology and immunological effector mechanisms against cancer and infectious diseases such as Malaria and COVID-19.

Caroline Junqueira’s group aims to apply basic discoveries to the development of public health interventions, such as diagnostic methodologies, vaccines, drugs and immunotherapeutic interventions. The group integrates multiple methodologies to identify new mechanisms by which intracellular pathogens and tumor cells are recognized and eliminated by immune effector cells.

Performing basic research, they are investigating the mechanisms that induce activation of innate and adaptive cytotoxic lymphocytes in the context of cancer, inflammation, and infectious diseases and are uncovering new mechanisms of antigen presentation and target cell recognition. This includes the identification of:

1. i) new ligands to cytotoxic cell receptors;
2. ii) new mechanisms of antigen presentation via classical and non-classical HLAs;
3. iii) alternative effector mechanism elicited by innate, innate-like and adaptative lymphocytes.

Unlike classical mechanisms of acquired lymphocytes, much of the non-classical HLA presentation and activation mechanisms of innate and innate-like lymphocytes are still unknown. Thus, the goal of the research is to better characterize the activation mechanisms of innate and innate-like lymphocytes in the context of intracellular infections and tumors, and to explore the HLA-E presentation pathway and its effector mechanisms. In recent years, most efforts around these lines of research focused on better understanding these mechanisms during malaria, although other infectious diseases and cancer models are also being explored.

Other projects focused on better understanding the mechanism of cell death mediated by pathogen- and damaged-associated molecular patterns, and by cytotoxic granzymes. This topic includes the study of immunopathology triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection, activation, and cell death of circulating monocytes, as well as the role of immune complexes in sustaining systemic inflammation in patients with long COVID and chronic inflammatory diseases.