Daniel Kaufmann

Biography

Dr. Daniel E. Kaufmann leads a group at the Research Center of the Center Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CRCHUM) and is head of the Immunopathology research axis at the CRCHUM. He also has clinical responsibilities as a supervising physician in the CHUM Division of Infectious Disease.

Dr Kaufmann studied medicine at the universities of Lausanne and Zurich in Switzerland. He specialized in internal medicine and infectios disease. After a postdoctoral internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, he was promoted to the faculty at Harvard Medical School. His work has contributed significantly to understanding the mechanisms of immunoregulation and dysfunction of T lymphocytes in HIV infection. In November 2012, Dr. Kaufmann was recruited at the CRCHUM and continues his academic career in the departments of medicine and microbiology, infectiology and immunology at the University of Montreal. His research is funded by several prestigious institutions, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). He is a recipient of a research grant from the Fonds en Recherche Québec Santé (FRQS). Dr. Kaufmann has published his work in prestigious international journals. He sits on several international committees for the evaluation of applications for funds and research programs and participates in the review of articles for numerous scientific journals. He has active collaborations with a broad network of researchers in Montreal, Canada, the United States, Europe and South Africa.

Team

• Mathieu Dubé, MSc, PhD, research associate
• Nathalie Brassard, B.Sc, laboratory manager
• Julia Niessl, M.Sc, PhD student
• Elsa Brunet-Ratnasingham, B.Sc, PhD student
• Gérémy Sannier, M.Sc, PhD student
• Marc Khoury, B.Sc, Masters student

Themes

• Virology
• Immunology

Research topics

I am a physician scientist with expertise in immunobiology of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. My laboratory primarily focuses on the role of CD4 T cells to combat or prevent this viral disease.  The three major areas of research are:

1. The understanding of effective CD4 T cell help in anti-HIV immunity.
2. The causes of T cell impairment in HIV infection.
3. The links between differentiation and regulation of CD4 T cells and their role as viral reservoirs.

We are interested in mechanisms that control the functional plasticity of CD4 T cells in and regulate the impairment of Thelper responses, with the ultimate goal of facilitating development of therapeutic strategies or vaccines to improve immune function. We have made major contributions to the understanding of T cell exhaustion in HIV infection, in particular on the roles played by the PD-1, CTLA-4 and IL-10 pathways. We have delineated differences in mechanisms of immune impairment between CD4 and CD8 T cells. We have established new flow cytometric RNA fluorescent in situ hybridization (RNA-FISH) assays to detect specific genes in peripheral blood and lymphoid tissues as well as to characterize viral reservoirs at the single-cell level. Our laboratory has also developed a wide array of techniques, including innovative approaches to characterize HIV-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell differentiation and function.

Publications

Immune Checkpoint Blockade Restores HIV-Specific CD4 T Cell Help for NK Cells.
Porichis F, Hart MG, Massa A, Everett HL, Morou A, Richard J, Brassard N, Veillette M, Hassan M, Ly NL, Routy JP, Freeman GJ, Dubé M, Finzi A, Kaufmann DE.
J Immunology. 2018 Aug 1;201(3):971-981. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.1701551. Epub 2018 Jun 22.
PMID: 29934472

Multiparametric characterization of rare HIV-infected cells using an RNA-flow FISH technique.
Baxter AE, Niessl J, Fromentin R, Richard J, Porichis F, Massanella M, Brassard N, Alsahafi N, Routy JP, Finzi A, Chomont N, Kaufmann DE.
Nature Protocols. 2017 Oct;12(10):2029-2049. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2017.079. Epub 2017 Sep 7.
PMID: 28880280

Single-Cell Characterization of Viral Translation-Competent Reservoirs in HIV-Infected Individuals.
Baxter AE, Niessl J, Fromentin R, Richard J, Porichis F, Charlebois R, Massanella M, Brassard N, Alsahafi N, Delgado GG, Routy JP, Walker BD, Finzi A, Chomont N, Kaufmann DE.
Cell Host & Microbe. 2016 Sep 14;20(3):368-380. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2016.07.015. Epub 2016 Aug 18.
PMID: 27545045

High-throughput detection of miRNAs and gene-specific mRNA at the single-cell level by flow cytometry.
Porichis F, Hart MG, Griesbeck M, Everett HL, Hassan M, Baxter AE, Lindqvist M, Miller SM, Soghoian DZ, Kavanagh DG, Reynolds S, Norris B, Mordecai SK, Nguyen Q, Lai C, Kaufmann DE.
Nature Communications. 2014 Dec 4;5:5641. doi: 10.1038/ncomms6641.
PMID: 25472703