Dr. Frances Lund is the Charles H. McCauley Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Lund is most well known for the work from her laboratory showing that B lymphocytes have a larger role in the immune response than previously appreciated. While scientists have long recognized that B cells make antibodies that label bacteria and viruses for destruction by the immune system, Dr. Lund’s group showed that B cells also produce chemical signaling molecules called cytokines and demonstrated that the cytokines made specifically by B cells can alter the magnitude, duration and quality of the immune response that is generated in response to pathogens, allergens and autoantigens. Today her laboratory focuses on developing methods to identify and eliminate B cells that contribute to autoimmune or allergic disease pathogenesis while maintaining the protective pathogen-specific B cell subsets.

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