Erika L. Pearce
Immunologist who studies how metabolism controls T-cell fate. As a postdoc at Penn she showed in mice that drugs that raise fatty acid oxidation, metformin and rapamycin, increase CD8 memory T cells
Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Johns Hopkins University (Department of Oncology, School of Medicine; Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Bloomberg School of Public Health) · Director, Department of Immunometabolism, Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, Freiburg (from 2015) · Assistant then Associate Professor, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis (2011–2015) · Trudeau Institute (2009–2011) · PhD (2005) and postdoc, University of Pennsylvania · Leibniz Prize (2018)
Erika Pearce was first author of the Atlas study showing that mouse CD8 T cells lacking the adaptor TRAF6 failed to switch on AMPK and fatty acid oxidation and so formed almost no memory cells, and that daily metformin restored memory formation (PEA2009). Rapamycin, used as a second drug that promotes fatty acid oxidation, also increased memory CD8 T cells. The paper appeared in the same issue of Nature as a study from Rafi Ahmed's group reporting that rapamycin enhances memory CD8 T cells.
Pearce earned her PhD in cell and molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania and stayed at Penn for postdoctoral work, where she began studying how metabolism shapes immune responses. She started her own lab at the Trudeau Institute, moved to Washington University in St. Louis, and in 2015 became a director at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg. She then moved to Johns Hopkins as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, where her group studies how mitochondrial structure and metabolism control T-cell differentiation, survival and function.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2009 | A | Enhancing CD8 T-cell memory by modulating fatty acid metabolism PEA2009 First author: showed in mice that boosting fatty acid oxidation with metformin or rapamycin increases CD8 memory T-cell formation. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Erika L. Pearce.
- Russell G. Jones Studies how nutrient and energy sensing by AMPK and mTOR shapes cell metabolism, especially in T cells and cancer. As a postdoc with Craig Thompson he showed that AMPK triggers a p53-dependent glucose checkpoint in the cell cycle
- Yongwon Choi Immunologist who studies TRAF6 and RANKL (TRANCE) signalling at the junction of the immune and skeletal systems; senior author of the study linking TRAF6 and fatty acid oxidation to CD8 T-cell memory
Every researcher with a profile →
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