Ragon Institute

Lab Overview

Dr. Galit Alter is a pioneering scientist whose groundbreaking work has revolutionized the way we understand the immune system’s response to diseases that affect humanity. Her innovative research has led to the development of systems serology and systems Fc-engineering, powerful tools that dissect the protective immune mechanisms of polyclonal antibodies and is now widely used by labs around the world. By employing systems serology, Dr. Alter and her team have provided invaluable insights into how the immune system diversifies the humoral immune response—a process critical for leveraging the innate immune system to fight infection and disease.

Systems Serology: A New Era in Immune Profiling
At the heart of Dr. Alter’s work is systems serology, a technology she invented that allows scientists to comprehensively map the immune response to infections and vaccines. This tool measures how antibodies interact with various innate and adaptive immune cells, capturing the fascinating bi-functional role of antibodies in the immune system as orchestrators of target antigen-clearance. Systems serology has both revealed the pathological role of antibodies in autoimmune disease and infection, but also highlighted unexpected immune correlates of protection—mechanisms that could guide the design of next-generation vaccines or monoclonal therapeutics.

Dr. Alter recently returned from a sabbatical leading Immunology Research at Moderna. Dr. Alter continues to drive the development of new technologies focused on to forge forward revealing new nuances of protective immunity across both infectious and non-infectious human disease.