Elina Zúñiga

Elina Zúñiga is an Argentinian Immunologist and Professor of Molecular Biology in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. Zúñiga has made critical discoveries regarding host-virus interactions in both acute and chronic infections. Using lymphocytic choriomeningitis models (LCMV) and murine cytomegalovirus models, her laboratory at UCSD studies host immune adaptations in chronic viral disease and methods of viral suppression of the immune system in order to develop novel methods and identify novel targets of anti-viral defence.

In 2018, Zúñiga was chosen by the American Association of Immunologists to give the international Vanguard Lecture. Zúñiga is also co-founder of the Global Immunotalks series which she and Carla Rothlin started in 2020 as a means to make cutting-edge immunology research freely available and easily accessible to a global audience.

Early life and education Zúñiga was born in Argentina. She pursued her Bachelors of Science and her Masters of Science in biochemistry from the National University of Cordoba in Argentina. Zúñiga stayed at the National University of Cordoba to pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry. She was mentored by Adriana Gruppi, and focused her work on the B cell response to the parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, the cause of chronic Chagas disease. She discovered that the parasites provide signals to the immune system that prompt early and aberrant apoptosis of B cells to weaken the immune response. A critical finding was that after infection by the parasite, B cells begin to express both Fas and FasL which allows for B cell-B cell killing. She focused her work on plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs) which are a unique innate immune cell that produces large quantities of type I interferons. She found that viral infection induces bone marrow pDCs to differentiate into myeloid dendritic cells (mDCs). This change in phenotype and function enables the innate immune system with the enhanced ability to process and present antigens and recognize microbial antigens through Toll-like receptors. While they were both completing postdocs in La Jolla, Zúñiga taught Rothlin how to grow dendritic cells in culture to help her with her own postdoctoral work.

T cells in viral infection In 2016, Zúñiga's lab explored the unknown mechanisms by which CD4 T cell activity is suppressed in chronic viral infections. They found that TGF-β signaling was specifically restricting the activity and differentiation of anti-viral CD4 T cells. TGF-β was found to suppress granzyme and perforin expression as well as the transcription factor eomesodermin, which limits anti-viral immune defences in chronic infection. They found that in T cells specific IL-6R deficient mice, ICOS expression was reduced, the presence of germinal centers was reduced, class switching was impaired, and antibodies against LCMV had overall lower avidity. They found that CD8 T cell responses in viral infection led to anorexia which caused a change in microbiome composition. This change skewed microbiomes towards having more Akkermansia muciniphila, and this skew in turn suppressed effector functions of CD8 T cells. In 2016, Zúñiga and her team found a novel mechanism by which pDC IFN-I production is down regulated through CD28.

In 2018, Zúñiga's lab discovered novel mechanisms of innate immune exhaustion in pDCs. They found that sustained IFN-I and toll-like receptor 7 signaling maintained an exhausted pool of pDCs in the bone marrow and spleen. In the periphery, exhausted pDCs self-renewed, sustaining a pool of pDCs with compromised IFN-I production and rendering the host with weaker resistance to secondary infection. and she recently created the Global Immunotalks lecture series, in collaboration with Carla Rothlin, as a means to provide free and equitable access to cutting-edge immunology research without the need for travel. These talks were inspired by Zúñiga's awareness of the inequities that exist in terms of access to cutting-edge research, and that opportunities to attend seminars and hear cutting-edge research are very limited for a large number of people in the academic community. 2015 American Cancer Society Scholar Award 2011 The Vilcek Finalist Prize for Creative Promise 2002 Antorchas Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship 1995 Prize of the Belgian Development Cooperation