Gabrielle Rizzuto, United States

Gabrielle Rizzuto is an Assistant Member in the Human Oncology Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Rizzuto received her MD and PhD from the Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD/PhD Program. She completed her PhD in Immunology in Dr. Alan Houghton and Dr. Jedd Wolchok’s laboratory at Sloan Kettering Institute. During her PhD she investigated the role of CD8 T cell precursor frequency in vaccination strategies against melanoma antigens. Dr. Rizzuto completed residency in Anatomic Pathology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and obtained subspecialty training in perinatal (placental and fetal) pathology.  During residency, she worked in Dr. Anna Bakardjiev’s laboratory at UCSF to investigate how local immunoregulation in the pregnant uterus impairs anti-pathogen defense. Her post-doctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. Adrian Erlebacher at UCSF focused on elucidating antigen-specific mechanisms of fetomaternal tolerance. Dr. Rizzuto discovered that maternal B cells are not only aware of placental antigens, but that their response is profoundly suppressed in antigen-specific fashion and in a mechanism that appears to involve antigen glycosylation. The overall goal of her research program is to elucidate the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie maternal immune tolerance of placental and fetal antigens.