- Postdoc - Ragon Institute of MGH, Harvard and MIT & Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2016-2024)
- Ph.D. in Pathology, New York University (2016)
- B.S. in Chemistry, Mary Baldwin University (2007)
Education & Training
Irvine EB, Nikolov A, Kahn M, Peters JM, Lu R, Sixsmith J, Wallace A, Schenider M, Shin S, Karpinski W, Hsaio JC, van Woundenbergh E, Casadevall A, Bryson BD, Cavacini LA, Grace PS, Fortune SM, Alter GA. Fc-engineered antibodies leverage neutrophils to drive control of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. bioRvx (2022). doi:10.1101/2022.05.01.490220
Grace PS, Gunn BM, Lu LL. Engineering the supernatural: monoclonal antibodies for challenging infectious diseases. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2022 Dec;78:102818. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2022.102818. Epub 2022 Oct 12. PMID: 36242952; PMCID: PMC9612313.
Grace PS, Dolatshahi S, Lu LL, Cain A, Palmieri F, Petrone L, Fortune SM, Ottenhoff THM, Lauffenburger DA, Goletti D, Joosten SA, Alter G. Antibody Subclass and Glycosylation Shift Following Effective TB Treatment. Front Immunol. 2021 Jul 5;12:679973. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.679973. PMID: 34290702; PMCID: PMC8287567.
Lu LL, Chung AW, Rosebrock TR, Ghebremichael M, Yu WH, Grace PS, Schoen MK, Tafesse F, Martin C, Leung V, Mahan AE, Sips M, Kumar MP, Tedesco J, Robinson H, Tkachenko E, Draghi M, Freedberg KJ, Streeck H, Suscovich TJ, Lauffenburger DA, Restrepo BI, Day C, Fortune SM, Alter G. A Functional Role for Antibodies in Tuberculosis. Cell. 2016 Oct 6;167(2):433-443.e14. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.08.072. Epub 2016 Sep 22. PMID: 27667685; PMCID: PMC5526202.
Srivastava S, Grace PS, Ernst JD. Antigen Export Reduces Antigen Presentation and Limits T Cell Control of M. tuberculosis. Cell Host Microbe. 2016 Jan 13;19(1):44-54. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2015.12.003. PMID: 26764596; PMCID: PMC4715867.
Tuberculosis, the disease caused by the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) remains a global public health burden that takes many lives each year. There is currently no effective vaccine that prevents disease. And an incomplete knowledge about bacterial vulnerabilities that can be targeted by immunity impedes the development of needed new therapies and vaccines.
Antibodies are a powerful and adaptive feature of the immune system that can coordinate potent protective responses during infection. Canonically viewed as antigen specific effectors that neutralize extracellular virus via the antigen binding (Fab) domain, the antibody constant (or Fc-) domain also contributes to pathogen control via interactions with complement or Fc receptors (FcR) expressed on immune cells. Antibodies are a key immune feature that links the TB pathogen to innate and adaptive immunity. The Grace lab uses human and mouse models to:
1. Understand the interaction of antibodies with TB antigens
2. Identify humoral immune correlates in TB patients associated with favorable infection outcomes
3. Define antibody-Fc driven mechanisms that promote bacterial restriction by immune cells