IMMUNOLOGY2026™ Conference Recordings For Attendees-Comparative immunodermatology approaches for skin diseases in pet dogs and people

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The symposium featured three talks on veterinary immunology and translational medicine.<br /><br />Dr. Jillian Richmond presented comparative immunodermatology research on inflammatory and cancerous skin diseases in dogs and humans. Using spontaneous disease in pet dogs, transcriptomics, spatial transcriptomics, and mouse validation, her team identified shared pathways in cutaneous lupus and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). Key findings included chemokine-driven T-cell recruitment in lupus, CXCR3 as a therapeutic target, successful use of JAK inhibition in dogs, and development of a longer-acting JAK1 siRNA approach. For CTCL, they identified biomarkers that may distinguish malignant disease from benign dermatitis and showed promise for monitoring treatment response and addressing disparities in skin-of-color patients.<br /><br />Dr. Cynthia Leifer described efforts to build feline CAR T-cell therapy from scratch. Because feline immunology tools are limited, her lab first developed methods to isolate, activate, expand, and genetically modify cat T cells. They showed feline T cells can be expanded in culture and engineered with a human CD19 CAR that functions in vitro. The team then created a feline coronavirus spike-targeted CAR using a recovered historic hybridoma, demonstrating specific recognition of infected cells. Her talk highlighted both the technical barriers and the potential to adapt CAR platforms for feline cancer and infectious disease.<br /><br />Dr. Elisa Cresci discussed porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV), a major economic threat to the pig industry. Her team built an immunobiobank from vaccinated pigs and combined in vitro assays with in silico epitope prediction to estimate which vaccines might best match circulating North Carolina strains. They found strong strain-to-strain variation, little early neutralizing antibody cross-reactivity, and useful correlations between T-cell responses and predicted epitope coverage, especially for the N gene.

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Date April 17, 2026 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Room 104C

Session Building disease resistance (through innovative approaches) in the context of changing societal norms and evading pathogens, Spon. by the Veterinary Immunology Committee

Speaker Jillian Richmond

Track Veterinary and Comparative Immunology (VET)

Year 2026

Keywords

veterinary immunology

translational medicine

comparative immunodermatology

cutaneous lupus

cutaneous T-cell lymphoma

JAK inhibition

CXCR3

feline CAR T-cell therapy

feline immunology

human CD19 CAR

feline coronavirus

PRRSV

immunobiobank

epitope prediction

April 17, 2026 12:30 PM - 2:30 PM

104C

Building disease resistance (through innovative approaches) in the context of changing societal norms and evading pathogens, Spon. by the Veterinary Immunology Committee

Jillian Richmond

Veterinary and Comparative Immunology (VET)

2026