The Department of Immunology:
The department of Immunology in Pasteur Institute of Iran was founded in 1985 with the aim of developing the applied and fundamental research in immunology of intracellular infectious diseases, with a special emphasis on the leishmaniases. Since then, this department has managed to train a large number of researchers and students in Ph.D. and M.Sc. levels and has received many national and international research grants The department is consisted of laboratories, equipped with advanced instruments required for research in many fields of immunology.
The laboratories are consisted of:
Cellular Immunology Laboratory:This laboratory analyses the numeration and function of T-cells, the intra- and extracellular cytokines, the specific surface cell markers, apoptotic cells, using Flow-Cytometric techniques.
Immunochemistry Laboratory:This laboratory employs the main techniques of immunohistochemistry used for the measurement of antibodies; namely the fluorescent microscopy, ELISA, SDS-PAGE, Western blotting, affinity chromatography and gel-diffusion techniques.
Immunogenetics Laboratory:This Laboratory was established to study the immunogenetics of the infectious diseases using techniques such as HLA-typing by classical or molecular methods, RFLP, ARMS-PCR, SSCP, RAPD-PCR.
Monoclonal antibody Laboratory:This laboratory focuses on the production of monoclonal antibodies using hybridoma and phage display technology as an effective tool for immunological detection purposes or other research objectives. Moreover, development of oligoclonal nanobodies and genetically engineered T cells are practiced in this lab.
Antigen production Laboratory:This laboratory was founded in 1987 for the purpose of preparation and evaluation of delayed hypersensitivity skin reaction tests using antigens obtained from Leishmania major. “Leishmanin” is produced in this lab has been selected by the WHO Tropical Disease Research Center for epidemiological and vaccine Studies as a reference reagent. A Leishmania bank containing mostly L. major strains that are characterized by isoenzyme, mAb, and PCR analysis is available in this lab.
Molecular Immunology Laboratory:This laboratory carries out research on cutaneous and visceral leishmaniases, tuberculosis, pertussis. Molecular biology experiments such as gene cloning as well as expression and purification of recombinant proteins and their application in projects on recombinant vaccine candidates and their effects on the treatment and the immune responses of the animal models of infectious diseases are performed in this laboratory. The other activities of this laboratory are research projects on MicroRNA and study cytokines RNA expression by Real-time PCR. Moreover, the genetic identification and analyses of different strains of Leishmania by molecular biology tools are performed in this laboratory.
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Mohsen Abolhassani
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PhD
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Retired Scientists
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