Adam J Gehring

Adam Gehring received his Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. His training included a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Institute of Hepatology at University College London and a position of Senior Research Fellow, and subsequently Assistant Principal Investigator, at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences. Dr. Gehring moved to Saint Louis University as an Assistant Professor in the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology department in March 2013 before joining the Toronto Centre for Liver Disease as Biology Lead in February 2016.

My lab investigates the pathogenesis of chronic hepatitis B virus infection with the goal of exploiting that knowledge to develop novel immunotherapeutic approaches. I am particularly interested in how the human immune system interacts with viral proteins in the blood and immune responses in the human liver, the site of HBV infection.

My previous work demonstrated that specific immune cells, monocytes, in the blood of chronic hepatitis B patients internalize and retain viral antigen. Using a combination of cytokines we could stimulate presentation of the captured antigen to boost HBV-specific T cell immunity. The goal now is to further understand this mechanism in patients to define an immunotherapeutic drug combination that can be used to restore anti-viral T cell immunity using the personalized antigen reservoir in the patients’ blood.

Our research on human liver immunology focuses on how age, sex and infection impact the intrahepatic immune response. Chronic hepatitis B is a progressive disease that worsens with age and men are more likely than women to develop liver cancer. We are trying to elucidate functional differences in the liver to understand HBV progression and biomarkers that could provide a drug targets to stop or slow disease progression.

Related Links

Research Gate Profile

Trained immunity in newborn infants of HBV-infected mothers.

Nat Commun. 2015;6:6588

Hong M, Sandalova E, Low D, Gehring AJ, Fieni S, Amadei B, Urbani S, Chong YS, Guccione E, Bertoletti A

Reply to: "To target or not to target viral antigens in HBV related HCC?".

J Hepatol. 2015 Jun;62(6):1450-2

Qasim W, Brunetto M, Gehring AJ, Maini MK, Bonino F, Stauss H, Bertoletti A

Dissecting the dendritic cell controversy in chronic hepatitis B virus infection.

Cell Mol Immunol. 2015 May;12(3):283-91

Gehring AJ, Ann D'Angelo J

Immunotherapy of HCC metastases with autologous T cell receptor redirected T cells, targeting HBsAg in a liver transplant patient.

J Hepatol. 2015 Feb;62(2):486-91

Qasim W, Brunetto M, Gehring AJ, Xue SA, Schurich A, Khakpoor A, Zhan H, Ciccorossi P, Gilmour K, Cavallone D, Moriconi F, Farzhenah F, Mazzoni A, Chan L, Morris E, Thrasher A, Maini MK, Bonino F, Stauss H, Bertoletti A

A whole recombinant yeast-based therapeutic vaccine elicits HBV X, S and Core specific T cells in mice and activates human T cells recognizing epitopes linked to viral clearance.

PLoS One. 2014;9(7):e101904

King TH, Kemmler CB, Guo Z, Mann D, Lu Y, Coeshott C, Gehring AJ, Bertoletti A, Ho ZZ, Delaney W, Gaggar A, Subramanian GM, McHutchison JG, Shrivastava S, Lee YJ, Kottilil S, Bellgrau D, Rodell T, Apelian D

Toll-like receptor 8 agonist and bacteria trigger potent activation of innate immune cells in human liver.

PLoS Pathog. 2014 Jun;10(6):e1004210

Jo J, Tan AT, Ussher JE, Sandalova E, Tang XZ, Tan-Garcia A, To N, Hong M, Chia A, Gill US, Kennedy PT, Tan KC, Lee KH, De Libero G, Gehring AJ, Willberg CB, Klenerman P, Bertoletti A

Building and optimizing a virus-specific T cell receptor library for targeted immunotherapy in viral infections.

Sci Rep. 2014;4:4166

Banu N, Chia A, Ho ZZ, Garcia AT, Paravasivam K, Grotenbreg GM, Bertoletti A, Gehring AJ

Immune therapeutic strategies in chronic hepatitis B virus infection: virus or inflammation control?

PLoS Pathog. 2013;9(12):e1003784

Bertoletti A, Gehring AJ

How further suppression of virus replication could improve current HBV treatment.

Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2013 Aug;11(8):755-7

Tavis JE, Gehring AJ, Hu Y

A practical approach to immunotherapy of hepatocellular carcinoma using T cells redirected against hepatitis B virus.

Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2013;2:e114

Koh S, Shimasaki N, Suwanarusk R, Ho ZZ, Chia A, Banu N, Howland SW, Ong AS, Gehring AJ, Stauss H, Renia L, Sällberg M, Campana D, Bertoletti A