Dr. Sherry Fleming's laboratory

"My laboratory studies the complement system, a first line of defense within the immune system. Complement is a complex cascade of proteins that can kill cells after antibody binding. The body's cells express complement receptors that enhance killing of infected cells. Complement regulatory proteins are also expressed to protect normal cells from lysis. Many cancer cells express high levels of these regulatory proteins and are protected from being killed. The current focus of my laboratory is to understand the function of complement proteins that enhance and inhibit cell killing. This will allow us to selectively enhance complement activation or inhibit complement regulatory proteins, providing more effective killing of tumor cells."