William Kwok, PhD
Title:
Member
Email Address:
Phone Number:
206-583-6517
Background
Dr. Kwok received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin. After completing his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Washington in 1983, he remained in Seattle completing post-doctoral research work at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center before moving to the Virginia Mason Research Center (later renamed the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason). Since 1988, he has been a principle investigator at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason.
Areas of Research
Dr. Kwok's research projects are focused on understanding the behavior of human “helper” T cells. These cells are difficult to detect and isolate using traditional methods, but can be studied effectively using tetramers: synthetic protein conjugates that can be used to directly label T cells. These novel tetramer reagents provide a new approach for studying healthy immune responses directed against viruses and other pathogens and harmful immune responses that are the underlying cause of autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and scleroderma. More recently, this same approach is being applied to study the immune responses that lead to allergy. Detailed studies using tetramers have increased our understanding of the biochemical patterns that activate the immune system. Knowledge of this kind will be critical for developing improved vaccines and targeted therapies to combat autoimmune disease.
Selected Publications
Roti M, Yang J, Berger D, Huston L, James EA, Kwok WW. Healthy Human Subjects Have CD4+ T Cells Directed against H5N1 Influenza Virus. J Immunol. 2008 180:1758-68.
Gebe JA, Kwok WW. Tracking antigen specific CD4+ T-cells with soluble MHC molecules. Methods Mol Med. 2007 136:39-50.
James EA, Bui J, Berger D, Huston L, Roti M, Kwok WW. Tetramer-guided epitope mapping reveals broad, individualized repertoires of tetanus toxin-specific CD4+ T cells and suggests HLA-based differences in epitope recognition. Int Immunol. 2007 19:1291-301.
James EA, Kwok WW. CD8+ suppressor-mediated regulation of human CD4+ T cell responses to glutamic acid decarboxylase 65. Eur J Immunol. 2007 37:78-86.
Yang J, James EA, Huston L, Danke NA, Liu AW, Kwok WW. Multiplex mapping of CD4 T cell epitopes using class II tetramers. Clin Immunol. 2006 120:21-32.
Yang J, Danke NA, Berger D, Reichstetter S, Reijonen H, Greenbaum C, Pihoker C, James EA, Kwok WW. Islet-specific glucose-6-phosphatase catalytic subunit-related protein-reactive CD4+ T cells in human subjects. J Immunol. 2006 176:2781-9.
Reichstetter S, Standifer NE, Geubtner KA, Liu AW, Agar SL, Kwok WW. Cytotoxic herpes simplex type 2-specific, DQ0602-restricted CD4 T+-cell clones show alloreactivity to DQ0601. Immunology. 2006 117:350-7.
Ettinger RA, Papadopoulos GK, Moustakas AK, Nepom GT, Kwok WW. Allelic variation in key peptide-binding pockets discriminates between closely related diabetes-protective and diabetes-susceptible HLA-DQB1*06 alleles. J Immunol. 2006 176:1988-98.
Danke NA, Yang J, Greenbaum C, Kwok WW. Comparative study of GAD65-specific CD4+ T cells in healthy and type 1 diabetic subjects. J Autoimmun. 2005 25:303-11.
Yang J, Huston L, Berger D, Danke NA, Liu AW, Disis ML, Kwok WW. Expression of HLA-DP0401 molecules for identification of DP0401 restricted antigen specific T cells.
J Clin Immunol. 2005 25:428-36.
Danke NA, Koelle DM, Kwok WW. Persistence of herpes simplex virus type 2 VP16-specific CD4+ T cells. Hum Immunol. 2005 66:777-87.
Danke NA, Koelle DM, Yee C, Beheray S, Kwok WW. Autoreactive T cells in healthy individuals. J Immunol. 2004 172:5967-72.