Bio

Dr. Maura Rossetti is Director of the UCLA Immune Assessment Core and Assistant Professor with the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Dr. Rossetti earned her MS in Medical Biotechnology from the University of Milano-Bicocca and her PhD in Molecular Medicine/Basic and Applied Immunology from the San Raffaele University, both in Milan, Italy. During her graduate training, Dr. Rossetti focused on therapeutic approaches to induce immune tolerance through dendritic cell and T cell modulation in the areas of transplantation and lentiviral vector-mediated gene replacement therapy as a mentee of two world leaders in their respective fields, Dr. F. Bach and Dr. M.G. Roncarolo. For her postdoctoral work, she moved to the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Institute in San Diego, California, and then to the Singhealth Translational Immunology and Inflammation Centre, Singapore, where she focused on unraveling biomarkers and mechanisms of autoimmune arthritis. In November 2014, Dr. Rossetti was recruited to UCLA as lead scientist of the Immune Assessment Core, which she now directs. Dr. Rossetti’s research interests and expertise lie in immune tolerance, regulatory T cells, autoimmunity, gene therapy and transplantation.

Selected publications

Sosa, R., Zarrinpar, A., Rossetti, M., Lassman, C., Naini, B., Datta, N., Rao, P., Harre, N., Zheng, Y., Spreafico, R., Hoffmann, A., Busuttil, R., Gjertson, D., Zhai, Y., Kupiec-Weglinski, J.W., Reed, E., “Early Cytokine Signatures of Ischemia Reperfusion Injury in Human Orthotopic Liver Transplantation”, JCI Insight, epub (December 08, 2016).

Spreafico, R.*, Rossetti, M.*, Wallace, C.A., Lovell, D.J., and Albani, S., “Epipolymorphisms associated with clinical outcome of arthritis affect CD4+ T cell activation pathways”, PNAS, 113:13845-50 (2016). [* equal contribution]

van Loosdregt, J., Rossetti, M., Spreafico, R., Moshref, M., Olmer, M., Williams, G., Copeland, D., Pischel, K., Lotz, M., and Albani, S., “Increased autophagic flux in mature effector CD4+ T cells of rheumatoid arthritis patients results in T cell hyperactivation and apoptosis resistance”, Eur. J. Immunol., epub (Sep 14, 2016).

Rossetti, M.*, Spreafico, R.*, Wallace, C.A., Massa, M., Magni-Manzoni, S., Leong, J.Y., Gattorno, M., Martini, A., Lovell, D.J., and Albani, S., “Next-generation sequencing of TCR repertoires identifies synovial Treg cells recirculating into the bloodstream during active inflammation in human arthritis”, Ann. Rheum. Dis., epub (June 16, 2016). [* equal contribution]

Rossetti, M., and Spreafico, R., “Regulatory T Cell Therapy in Transplantation and Severe Autoimmunity”, Crit. Rev. Immunol., 35:479-503 (2015) (invited review)

Spreafico, R.*, Rossetti, M.*, van Loosdregt, J., Wallace, C.A., Massa, M., Magni-Manzoni, S., Gattorno, M., Martini, A., Lovell, D.J., and Albani, S., “A circulating reservoir of pathogenic-like CD4 T cells shares a genetic and phenotypic signature with the inflamed synovial micro-environment.”, Ann. Rheum. Dis., 75:459-465 (2016) [* equal contribution]

Rossetti, M.*, Spreafico, R.*, Saidin, S., Chua, C., Moshref, M., Leong, J.Y, Tan, Y.K., Thumboo, J., van Loosdregt, J., and Albani, S., Ex vivo-expanded, but not in vitro-induced, human regulatory T cells are candidates for cell therapy in autoimmune diseases thanks to stable demethylation of the regulatory T cell-specific demethylated region”, J. Immunol., 194:113-124 (2015) [* equal contribution]

Spreafico, R.*, Rossetti, M.*, van der Broek, T., Jansen, N., Zhang, H., Moshref, M., Prakken, B., van Loosdregt, J., van Wijk, F., and Albani, S., “A sensitive protocol for FOXP3 epigenetic analysis in scarce human samples”, Eur. J. Immunol., 44:3141-3143 (2014) [* equal contribution]

Bekiaris, V., Šedý, J.R., Rossetti, M., Spreafico, R., Sharma, S., Rhode-Kurnow, A., Ware, B.C., Huang, N., Macauley, M.G., Norris, P.S., Albani, S, and Ware, C.F., “Human CD4+CD3− innate-like T cells provide a source of TNF and LTαβ and are elevated in rheumatoid arthritis”, J. Immunol., 191:4611-4618 (2013)

van Loosdregt, J., Spreafico, R., Rossetti, M., Moshref, M., Lotz, M., Prakken, B., and Albani, S., “Hydroxychloroquine preferentially induces apoptosis of CD45RO+ effector T cells by inhibiting autophagy: A possible mechanism for therapeutic modulation of T cells”, J. Allergy Clin. Immun., 131:1443-1446 (2013)

Rossetti, M., Cavarelli, M., Gregori, S., and Scarlatti, G., “HIV-Derived Vectors for Gene Therapy Targeting Dendritic Cells”, Adv. Exp. Med. Biol., 762:239-261 (2013)

Andolfi, G., Fousteri, G., Rossetti, M., Magnani, C., Jofra, T., Locafaro, G., Bondanza, A., Gregori, S., and Roncarolo, M.-G., “Enforced IL-10 expression confers type 1 regulatory T cell (Tr1) phenotype and function to human CD4+ T cells”, Mol. Ther. 20:1778-1790 (2012)

Rossetti, M., Gregori, S., Hauben, E.H., Brown, B.D., Sergi Sergi, L., Naldini, L., and Roncarolo, M.-G., “HIV-1-derived lentiviral vectors directly activate plasmacytoid dendritic cells, which in turn induce the maturation of myeloid dendritic cells”, Hum. Gene Ther., 22:177-188 (2011)

Rossetti, M., Gregori, S., and Roncarolo, M.-G., “Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor drives the in vitro differentiation of human dendritic cells that induce anergy in naïve T cells”, Eur. J. Immunol., 40:3097-3106 (2010)