Jim Kaufman, PhD

I am interested in the evolution of immunity in the broadest sense, and over many years I worked with a wide range of animals, from humans to sponges. However, our lab has focused mostly on the MHC (but following questions that led to TCRs, NKRs, complement and so on) and the chicken (although we have worked in the recent past on the transmissible tumours of Tasmanian devils, resistance and susceptibility of rabbits to myxomavirus after biocontrol in Australia and accidental release in Europe, the genomic strategy of MHC function in sparrows and zebra finch, and so on). We have many ongoing projects at various levels of completion (and dreams of future projects), which mostly fall into three areas:

1. The relationship of genomic organisation to biological function, focusing on the role of genetic recombination and gene co-evolution. For example, the organisation of the MHC of chickens and typical mammals like humans is remarkably different, which has led to enormous differences in function. Our current data for passerine birds identify a third genomic strategy, and there are likely others to discover. Moreover, co-evolution is necessary to set-up new pathways, which can explain deep-time evolution and current features of the adaptive immune system.

1. The nature of and trade-offs between generalists and specialists in diversified immune molecules. The hierarchy of resistance and susceptibility to economically-important viral diseases conferred by chicken MHC haplotypes turns out to be part of a whole suite of properties defining a spectrum of MHC class I alleles from promiscuous generalists to fastidious specialists, found in humans as well. Moreover, indications are that this is a fundamental property of diversified immune molecules, including MHC class II molecules, natural killer cell receptors, antibodies and TLRs. Understanding all aspects of this new concept is a major thrust of the lab.

1. The importance of genomic accident in evolution. The evolution of species down a particular lineage often involves big genomic changes, loss of previously essential genes and appearance of lineage-specific novelties. There are enormous differences in what genes are present all along the vertebrates, and even between humans and mammalian biomedical models like mice. I am interested in how these genomic accidents occur and how species recover from such potential catastrophes."