Daniel Hawiger, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Education
M.D.: Vienna University
Ph.D.: Rockefeller University
Postdoctoral: Yale University
Research Interests
Dr. Hawiger’s research straddles basic science and clinically oriented applications
relevant to diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Dr. Hawiger made major contributions to understanding the functions of conventional
dendritic cells (cDCs) and T cells. He characterized cDCs with tolerogenic functions
in vivo and defined roles of such cDCs in amelioration of disease in models of multiple sclerosis
(MS). Further, Dr. Hawiger and his laboratory uncovered specific tolerogenic mechanisms
including the immunomodulatory pathways governing the induction of peripheral (extrathymic)
regulatory T cells in vivo. Dr. Hawiger elucidated molecular mechanisms controlling a survival of such regulatory
T cells relevant to their roles in amelioration of autoimmune responses. Additionally,
he revealed molecular mechanisms controlling death of tolerogenic cDCs under pro-inflammatory
conditions. He also defined the roles of a specific co-stimulatory pathway promoting
the onset of diabetes in an animal model. Recently, Dr. Hawiger uncovered in MS disease
models pre-effector T cells with a pluripotent differentiation potential in vivo that confer a capacity for autoimmune responses.
Earlier in his career Dr. Hawiger pioneered the anti-DEC-205 chimeric antibody for
targeted antigen delivery to DCs in vivo. He demonstrated the applications of this dendritic cell-targeting strategy for amelioration
of autoimmune disease in animal models. Since then, together with his lab, Dr. Hawiger
developed multiple other engineered recombinant antibodies and antibody-like molecules
for specific tolerogenic and pro-immunogenic immunomodulation. Dr. Hawiger’s lab developed methods for stable production of conventional
and bispecific recombinant antibodies and their conjugation with nucleic acids.
Recently, Dr. Hawiger’s team devised Seqtometry, an approach to single cell sequencing
analysis based on biologically interpretable dimensions enabled by advanced scoring
with multiple gene signatures for a qualitative and quantitative examination of gene
expression and gene accessibility. Dr. Hawiger established the applications of Seqtometry
for basic research as well as clinically relevant diagnostic approaches including
for identification of disease-relevant T cells in AD and other patients.