Dr. Renegar is board-eligible in Laboratory Animal Medicine, having completed 4 years residency training under the aegis of Drs. Bobby Ray Collins and Al Moreland in the Department of Small Animal Clinical Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, at the University of Florida while concurrently earning a Ph.D. from the Department of Immunology and Medical Microbiology of the College of Medicine. Her Ph.D. project, in the laboratory of Dr. Parker A. Small, Jr., dealt with the role of IgA in mucosal immunity to influenza virus. She is interested in the regulation of the mucosal immune system and in the development of vaccines that stimulate mucosal immunity. Infection of mice with Chlamydia trachomatis, a pathogen of the mucous membranes of the respiratory and genital tracts of a number of species, should be a useful model for the study of mucosal immunity in the female reproductive tract. The chlamydial organism is immunogenic; however, an effective vaccine which produces long-lasting immunity is not available. This observation, along with the observation that, experimentally, protection from chlamydial challenge can be induced by oral immunization, suggests the involvement of the mucosal immune system in immunity to chlamydia. Transport of intravenously-administered polymeric IgA monoclonal anti-influenza and anti-chlamydial antibodies into the reproductive tract will be studied to determine whether IgA is selectively transported into genital secretions relative to IgG, as the PI has shown it to be into respiratory secretions using IgA. Since cyclical hormonal variation may affect this immunity, the effects of estradiol and progesterone on antibody transport will be determined. Liposomes, which have been shown to act as an effective adjuvant in the induction of mucosal immunity in the female reproductive tract, will be used to stimulate local immunity to chlamydial antigens as a preliminary step in vaccine development.
