Blair Armistead, PhD, MPH

Blair Armistead, PhD, MPH
  • Children's Title: Principal Investigator, Supervisor, Center for Global Infectious Disease Research
  • Academic Title: Assistant Professor
  • Research Title: Principal Investigator
  • Research Center: Center for Global Infectious Disease Research

  • Biography

    Blair Armistead, PhD, MPH, is an assistant professor at the University of Washington Department of Pediatrics and a principal investigator at Seattle Children's Research Institute's Center for Global Infectious Disease Research.

    Dr. Armistead received her MPH from Virginia Commonwealth University, during which she conducted community health outreach related to sexual and reproductive health. She received her PhD in pathobiology from the University of Washington, where she completed her dissertation research in the lab of Dr. Lakshmi Rajagopal focused on pathogens that affect pregnancy, including Group B Streptococcus. She conducted her postdoctoral training in the lab of Dr. Whitney Harrington, where she studied the maternal and infant immune systems. 

    Research Description

    Worldwide, respiratory and enteric infections are leading causes of death and illness in children under one year of age. Exposure to breastmilk in the first year of life is protective against both the incidence and severity of these infections, an effect most often attributed to the passive transfer of bioactive compounds in human milk such as immunoglobulins, human milk oligosaccharides, and antimicrobial peptides. However, human milk also contains a high frequency of T cells, which have unknown specificity and function.

    Mechanistic studies on the establishment, specificity, response, and protective function of breastmilk T cells are needed to more completely understand how breastmilk bolsters protective immunity against respiratory and enteric pathogens during the critical window of vulnerability in infancy. Further, such studies are essential to the rational design of maternal vaccination strategies that aim to maximize the immunologic benefits conferred to nursing infants and subsequently reduce the burden of infection in infancy.

    To this end, our research investigates cellular immunity in the lactating breast as a novel therapeutic target for the prevention and treatment of respiratory and enteric infections in infants. We seek to accomplish this through three overarching projects that aim to: 1) elucidate a novel respiratory-mammary axis of T cell immunity; 2) define the pathogen-specific T cell repertoire in human breastmilk; and 3) investigate mechanisms of milk-derived T cell immunity in offspring using murine models.

    Research Focus Area

    Host-Pathogen Interaction, Infectious Disease, Lactation Biology, Maternal and Child Health, Mucosal Immunology

  • Awards and Honors

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  • Publications

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