Irini Sereti, M.D.

Senior Investigator

HIV Pathogenesis Unit

NIAID/DIR

Building 10, Room 11B07
10 Center Drive
Bethesda, MD 20892

301-496-5533

isereti@niaid.nih.gov

Research Topics

The primary research focus of our group is the study of inflammatory complication in HIV including immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS). IRIS is an aberrant immune response, frequently with an intense inflammatory component, that can occur in the context of immune restoration in patients with HIV infection and severe CD4 lymphopenia after initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Chronically treated patients on the other hand may experience non-infectious complications of HIV, including cardiovascular disease that seem to be driven by chronic residual immune activation and inflammation. The second interest is development of adjuvant immune-based therapies (IBT) to improve immune restoration in CD4 lymphopenic conditions such as HIV and idiopathic CD4 lymphopenia (ICL). ICL is a rare, likely heterogeneous condition characterized by low CD4 T-cell counts in the absence of HIV or other known infection or disease that can cause lymphopenia.

Biography

Dr. Sereti received her M.D. from the University of Athens, Greece, in 1991. She did research for one year in Dr. Greg Spear’s laboratory at Rush Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago and then completed an internship, residency, and chief residency in medicine at Northwestern University. In 1997, Dr. Sereti came to the National Institutes of Health as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Immunoregulation. She became a staff clinician in 2003. She was appointed to a clinical tenure-track position in 2009 and received tenure in 2015.

Selected Publications

  1. Rocco JM, Laidlaw E, Galindo F, Anderson M, Rupert A, Higgins J, Sortino O, Ortega-Villa AM, Sheikh V, Roby G, Kuriakose S, Lisco A, Manion M, Sereti I. Severe Mycobacterial Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome (IRIS) in Advanced Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Has Features of Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis and Requires Prolonged Immune Suppression. Clin Infect Dis. 2023;76(3):e561-e570.
  2. Lisco A, Lange C, Manion M, Kuriakose S, Dewar R, Gorelick RJ, Huik K, Yu Q, Hammoud DA, Smith BR, Muranski P, Rehm C, Sherman BT, Sykes C, Lindo N, Ye P, Bricker KM, Keele BF, Fennessey CM, Maldarelli F, Sereti I. Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome drives emergence of HIV drug resistance from multiple anatomic compartments in a person living with HIV. Nat Med. 2023;29(6):1364-1369.
  3. Epling BP, Rocco JM, Boswell KL, Laidlaw E, Galindo F, Kellogg A, Das S, Roder A, Ghedin E, Kreitman A, Dewar RL, Kelly SEM, Kalish H, Rehman T, Highbarger J, Rupert A, Kocher G, Holbrook MR, Lisco A, Manion M, Koup RA, Sereti I. Clinical, Virologic, and Immunologic Evaluation of Symptomatic Coronavirus Disease 2019 Rebound Following Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir Treatment. Clin Infect Dis. 2023;76(4):573-581.
  4. Lisco A, Ortega-Villa AM, Mystakelis H, Anderson MV, Mateja A, Laidlaw E, Manion M, Roby G, Higgins J, Kuriakose S, Walkiewicz MA, Similuk M, Leiding JW, Freeman AF, Sheikh V, Sereti I. Reappraisal of Idiopathic CD4 Lymphocytopenia at 30 Years. N Engl J Med. 2023;388(18):1680-1691.
  5. Perez-Diez A, Wong CS, Liu X, Mystakelis H, Song J, Lu Y, Sheikh V, Bourgeois JS, Lisco A, Laidlaw E, Cudrici C, Zhu C, Li QZ, Freeman AF, Williamson PR, Anderson M, Roby G, Tsang JS, Siegel R, Sereti I. Prevalence and pathogenicity of autoantibodies in patients with idiopathic CD4 lymphopenia. J Clin Invest. 2020;130(10):5326-5337.

Related Scientific Focus Areas

This page was last updated on Thursday, August 24, 2023