Dr. Scott Kitchen’s research interests are focused on investigating the effects of viral infection, as well as other cellular abnormalities, on human hematopoiesis and on exploring ways to correct defects that exist in immunity to viral and cellular antigens. The human immune system is normally fastidious in controlling the environmental assaults that the body receives every day. However, there are many instances where the immune response is ineffective in clearing infection or cancerous cells. Kitchen’s laboratory is interested in understanding the mechanisms that limit the immune systems’ ability to clear infection or cancer and in developing ways that augment these responses. Specifically, they are investigating the role of the CD4 molecule in multilineage hematopoiesis and in cellular responses, particularly in the context of HIV infection. They are also interested in developing gene therapy-based approaches to engineer human hematopoietic stem cells to reconstitute and/or enhance immune responses following their development into mature cells that specifically target HIV infection as well as other viral and cellular antigens. In addition, his laboratory is interested in the development of mouse/human chimeric models that allow the characterization of human hematopoiesis and engineered immunity in a surrogate in vivo host.