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Additional Contact Information: Department of Biomedical Sciences |
Education:
2016-2023 Postdoctoral Fellow
Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Surgery
2016 Ph.D. Microbiology
University of Maine, Department of Molecular and Biomedical
Sciences
2010 B.S. Microbiology
B.S. Biochemistry/Molecular and Cellular Biology
University of Maine, Orono, Maine
Research/Teaching Interests:
1. Host-pathogen interactions
2. Fungal infections
3. Innate immunity: neutrophils
Narrative of research/teaching interests, personal statements or figures:
My laboratory is focused on studying host-pathogen interactions, especially the role of neutrophils in antifungal defense. While neutrophils have long been appreciated to play a role in host defense, the mechanisms by which they accomplish this remain incompletely understood.
Recent work has characterized a novel behavior of neutrophils, termed “neutrophil swarming”. In swarming, neutrophils defy the typical paradigm of acting as lone warriors and work together to coordinate the activity of many neutrophils against a single target. This behavior allows the neutrophils to attack and restrict the spread of invading pathogens that individual neutrophils would not be able to control, something that could be particularly relevant to fungal pathogens as many can alter their morphology to become too large to be individually phagocytosed.
Unfortunately swarming and its role during infection and inflammation are poorly understood. The current goals of my laboratory include investigating the molecular mechanisms that govern and control swarming formation and its effectiveness against diverse fungal pathogens. Our long-term goals are to define the role of swarming in shaping the effectiveness and outcome of infections in the host, both in healthy individuals and in patient populations at risk of invasive fungal infections. This will be leveraged to design novel augmentative therapies for those most susceptible to infection.
Publications:
*Hopke, A., Scherer, A., Kreuzburg, S. et al. Neutrophil swarming delays the growth of clusters of pathogenic fungi. Nat Commun 11, 2031 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15834-4
Hopke A, Lin T, Scherer AK, Shay AE, Timmer KD, Wilson-Mifsud B, Mansour MK, Serhan CN, Irimia D, Hurley BP. Transcellular biosynthesis of leukotriene B4 orchestrates neutrophil swarming to fungi. iScience. (2022) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2022.105226
Sykes DB, Martinelli MM, Negoro P, Xu S, Maxcy K, Timmer K, Viens AL, Alexander NJ, Atallah J, Snarr BD, Baistrocchi SR, Atallah NJ, Hopke A, et al. Transfusable neutrophil progenitors as cellular therapy for the prevention of invasive fungal infections. J Leukoc Biol. 2022; 1– 13. https://doi.org/10.1002/JLB.4HI1221-722R
Viens AL, Timmer KD, Alexander NJ, Barghout R, Milosevic J, Hopke A, et al. TLR Signaling Rescues Fungicidal Activity in Syk-Deficient Neutrophils. The Journal of Immunology March 11, 2022, ji2100599; DOI: 10.4049/jimmunol.2100599
Yonker LM, Marand A, Muldur S, Hopke A, Lin HM, De la Flor D, Park G, Pinsky H, Guthrie LB, Tearney GJ, Irimia D, Hurley BP. Neutrophil Dysfunction in Cystic Fibrosis. Journal of Cystic Fibrosis. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcf.2021.01.012.
Nicolas Barros, Natalie Alexander, Adam Viens, Kyle Timmer, Natalie Atallah, Sally A I Knooihuizen, Alex Hopke, Allison Scherer, Zeina Dagher, Daniel Irimia, Michael K Mansour, Cytokine Augmentation Reverses Transplant Recipient Neutrophil Dysfunction against the human fungal pathogen, Candida albicans, The Journal of Infectious Diseases. (2021) , jiab009, https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiab009
Knooihuizen, S.A., Alexander, N.J., Hopke, A., Barros, N., Viens, A., Scherer, A., Atallah, N.J., Dagher, Z., Irimia, D., Chung, R.T. and Mansour, M.K. Loss of Coordinated Neutrophil Responses to the Human Fungal Pathogen, Candida albicans, in Patients With Cirrhosis. Hepatology Communications. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1002/hep4.1645
Alexander NJ, Boyzm DJ, Farmer JR, Parris P, Viens A, Atallah N, Hopke A, Scherer A, Dagher Z, Barros N, Knooihuizen SAI, Saff SRR, Pasternack MS, Thompson RW, Irimia D, Mansour MK. Neutrophil Functional Profiling and Cytokine Augmentation for Patients with Multiple Recurrent Infections: A case study. The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. Volume 9, Issue 2, 2021, Pages 986-988. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaip.2020.08.024.
Negoro PE, Xu S, Dagher Z, Hopke A, Reedy JL, Feldman MB, Khan NS, Viens AL, Alexander NJ, Atallah NJ, Scherer AK, Dutko RA, Jeffery J, Kernien JF, Fites JS, Nett JE, Klein BS, Vyas JM, Irimia D, Sykes DB, Mansour MK. Spleen Tyrosine Kinase Is a Critical Regulator of Neutrophil Responses to Candida Species. mBio. 2020 May 12;11(3). doi: 10.1128/mBio.02043-19.