The Rockefeller University

Healthy Volunteers for the Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases (HGID)

Purpose

Our laboratory is working to find mutations in genes that may cause severe infectious diseases in adults. We will draw blood and take a small piece of skin (a biopsy) from ten healthy volunteers in order to support research studies being conducted in the Casanova Lab of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases. We will perform experiments to test the mutations that we find in patients with severe bacterial viral and fungal illnesses. The samples collected from healthy volunteers will be compared to those taken from patients with severe infectious diseases. Blood samples will be used as controls for but not limited to the following: for activation production of cytokines molecular expression cellular differentiation of either whole blood or just the white blood cells (leukocytes). A small skin biopsy (less than 2mm) will be taken from under the arm and will be used to generate fibroblast and keratinocyte cultures which will be immortalized and used as controls for but not limited to the following: stimulation of cytokine production protein expression and response to infection with viruses and bacteria. The fibroblasts may also be reprogrammed to become stem cells from which we will derive cells of the central nervous system and the lung for research studies.

Condition

• Healthy volunteers