Dr. Souheil-Antoine Younes is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine, Department of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals/Cleveland Medical Center. The focus of Dr. Younes current research is to characterize the mechanisms responsible for the natural proliferation of CD4 T and CD8 T cells in HIV-1 infection. During the past years, Dr. Younes has investigated the immunological mechanisms by which CD4 T cells proliferate in mouse models and he is currently focusing on understanding the mechanism by which T cell proliferate in humans. Dr. Younes has an extensive knowledge in T cell homeostasis and in HIV-1 pathogenesis. This was acquired in Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sekaly’s laboratory in which Dr. Younes worked intensively on understanding the mechanism behind the maintenance of HIV-1 specific CD4 T cells in HIV-1 infected patients (Younes JEM ‘2003, Younes JI’2007). Thereafter he moved to the National Institute of Health (NIH) to investigate T cell homeostasis in mouse models under the supervision of Dr. William Paul where he preformed studies on cycling CD4 T cells in mouse models (Younes Plos. Biology ‘2011). Dr. Younes ongoing research regards Immunometabolism in HIV-1 infection. Dr. Younes and his coworkers found dysfunctional mitochondria in the regulatory T cells of immune failure HIV-1 infected subjects whom CD4 T cell count did not normalize even after years of anti-HIV-1 drug therapy. The current focus of Dr. Younes research is to find a mean to rescue dysfunctional mitochondria for the purpose to restore CD4 T cell count in Immune failure subjects.
