Our Mission

St. Jude is a global leader in influenza research as a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Influenza and a National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR). Since influenza is a major public health burden that significantly affects both at-risk and healthy populations, researchers at St. Jude hope to better understand the effects of influenza on the human immune response. To achieve this goal, we have established human cohorts around the globe to capture naturally-acquired influenza infection and collect pertinent sample types. These samples are then used to characterize the immune response to influenza infection using various techniques including those to measure viral titers, cellular responses, antibody responses, and more.

Paul G. Thomas, PhD, full member in the department of Immunology at St. Jude, has been collaborating with researchers across the world to build these cohorts and share this vital data. By creating the Pediatric Influenza Portal (PIP), our aim is to provide investigators with ways to easily analyze the data from our human cohorts using question-specific parameters. For instance, if an investigator were only interested in individuals under the age of 12, PIP’s structure will allow them to select data from only those individuals to take forward to data visualization and interpretation. Data will be added as these cohorts are built and as soon as they are available.

The first cohort included in PIP is from the Memphis-based FLU09 cohort. This cohort enrolled pediatric cases of influenza infection, as well as household members, from 2009-2014. Data from FLU09 currently available on PIP include demographics, cytokine levels from nasal washes and plasma, viral loads, and HLA types.

In 2019, NIAID awarded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital a seven-year, $35-million grant to lead an international effort to define how influenza infection influences the developing immune system. Paul Thomas at St. Jude and Aubree Gordon at University of Michigan are co-Principal Investigators on this grant with 13 additional investigators at 12 medical and research centers in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Nicaragua. About 3,000 children across three geographically distinct cohorts recruited in Los Angeles, CA, USA; Wellington, NZ; and Managua, Nicaragua will be followed for seven years beginning at birth to gain knowledge of how someone’s first exposure to flu shapes the immune response to the virus throughout the person’s life. Researchers will study both naturally acquired infection and vaccination initial exposures to flu and are particularly interested in how these early flu exposures affects B cells, antibodies, and T cells produced in response to flu exposures in the future.