Kimberly (Kim) Weeks has spent a lifetime with conditions doctors could never pinpoint causes for or new diagnoses added to her list of chronic conditions. Across her life she always had reoccurring asthma, bronchitis and ear and sinus infections, among other ailments.

“It seemed like every time we would go to the doctor they would say, “You have this’ and ‘Now this is going on,’” Kim said, an avid animal lover who works at a veterinarian clinic in Bradenton, Fla.,

In the spring of 2019, a sinus infection turned into double pneumonia, and she had to be placed on a ventilator for two days. Her doctors were considering removing part of the then-32-year-old’s lung. But they were hesitant to perform the surgery because they were still unsure what was making Kim so sick.

That led Kim to seek treatment from USF Health Jolan Walter, MD, PhD, division chief of the USF Health Pediatric Allergy and Immunology programs in the Morsani College of Medicine.

“I soon established that this is not the primary problem with the lung, but maybe her immune system is making her prone for the disease,” said Dr. Walter, who eventually diagnosed Kim with a version of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) referred to as leaky SCID.

Jolan Walter, MD,PhD

Leaky SCID is an atypical immune deficiency in the bone marrow that prevents white blood cells from maturing, which hampers their ability to fight infections. These cases may remain unnoticed for years before emerging with organ-damaging effects as the patient’s own immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissue.

“Not only has Kim lost her immunity … she also acquired autoimmune complications,” Dr. Walter said.

The autoimmune complications included vitiligo, which causes the skin to lose color in blotches, and alopecia, or sudden hair loss. “Over time, it progressively got worse,” Kim said.

DNA samples

Dr. Walter determined that the only solution to restore Kim’s immune system was a bone marrow transplant, or hematopoietic stem cells. It came with risks.

“It was not an easy decision,” Dr. Walter said.

Treating leaky SCID with a bone marrow transplant is experimental, so Kim was sent to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) hospital in Maryland for the procedure.

“I don’t want to die, that’s my biggest fear,” Kim said.

In May 2021, Kim’s brother donated bone marrow for the transplant. She was the eighth person in the country to undergo the procedure for this condition. She was hospitalized for 45 days.

In the year since the transplant, Kim’s health has steadily improved, and she hasn’t seen a return of her symptoms.

“Overall, Kim being a year out of her transplant and the way she looks and feels is one of the biggest gifts that I can get from my career,” Dr. Walter said.

Now 35 years old, Kim can look forward to enjoying her life with family, friends and furry friends thanks to the excellent care provided by Dr. Walter and her team.

Dr. Jolan Walter with Kim Weeks during a follow-up appointment.

“She’s brilliant; she ensured that I’m going to be around to see my nieces and nephews graduate high school, college and be married,” Kim said.

Kim’s treatment was so new that Dr. Walter chronicled her case as the senior author in an article under review for the “Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice”, with former USF Health Pediatrics chief fellow Maria Chitty Lopez, MD, who is currently affiliated with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, serving as a first author. Kim’s case was also included in a study recently published by Nature Immunology.

Several USF Health team members of Dr. Walter’s laboratory have contributed to Kim’s case including David Evan Potts (MD & PhD student), Dr. Krisztian Csomos (research associate),  Melis Yilmaz (student intern), Boglarka Ujhazi  (biological scientist) and several past and current fellows in training in USF Health Allergy Immunology (Drs. Natalie Diaz-Cabrera, Tara Saco, Leah Ismael) and colleagues from our community (Dr. Roger Danziger).

3-D illustration of bacteria Peptostreptococcus, which are part of the human microbiome in the gut and can cause inflammation.

TAMPA, Fla (July 21, 2021) – USF Health today announced the launch of a major university-wide institute dedicated to harnessing the huge populations of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microbes inhabiting our bodies and our planet – known as microbiomes – to improve health and develop new treatments.

Based at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the new USF Institute for Microbiomes builds upon an ambitious microbiome initiative begun two years ago. That USF Initiative on Microbiomes has sparked interdisciplinary collaborations across the university to better understand how the diverse collections of microorganisms, unique to each person, might be exploited to benefit human health. It has also included studies of marine and soil microbial communities, which hold the potential to protect environmental as well as human health by mitigating climate change and food insecurity and generating alternative energy sources.

“As the university’s key constituent in this groundbreaking area of research, USF Health looks forward to accelerating microbiome discoveries and learning opportunities and applying this new knowledge to solve some of the most challenging real-world health problems,” said Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine. “The USF Institute for Microbiomes will unite investigators with different perspectives, both within and outside USF, to create stronger cross-disciplinary teams and provide shared resources needed to garner external grants, contracts and other funding sources.”

Christian Bréchot, MD, PhD, is director of the new USF Institute for Microbiomes,  based at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

The institute will strengthen existing microbiota-related collaborations with Moffitt Cancer Center as well as partner with other leading academic institutions and pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies to advance the research and development of innovative treatments and other microbiome-based solutions.

“The institute will play an important role in raising the university’s visibility as a pioneer of microbiome research, education and training, community engagement, and entrepreneurship,” said USF Health’s Christian Bréchot, MD, PhD, director of the USF Institute for Microbiomes. “Unraveling the behavior, interactions and function of microbial communities in different environments has the potential to transform not only medicine and other health fields, but also disciplines like marine science, ecology, chemistry, engineering, data science and anthropology.”

Still in the early stages, microbiome research has exploded globally as more studies probe how unbalanced microbial composition in the gut, skin, lungs and other parts of body influences disease, said Dr. Bréchot, who also serves as president of the Global Virus Network, associate vice president for International Partnerships and Innovation at USF Health; and professor of medicine (infectious diseases) at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Altering these microorganisms to restore balance holds promise for treating a growing number of medical conditions, including cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity, prematurity, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Evidence also suggests that the gut microbiome affects the sensitivity to and mitigation of viral infections, in particular COVID-19. Scientists continue to learn more about complex microbe-host interactions that might be used to identify individuals more likely to respond favorably to, or resist, a particular drug or immunotherapy.

Hariom Yadav, PhD, leads the institute’s Center for Microbiome Research.

The USF Institute for Microbiomes will expand the scholarly activities started by the university’s Initiative on Microbiomes, including:

• Recruitment of federally funded faculty: Hariom Yadav, PhD, associate professor of neurosurgery and brain repair, was recently recruited as the first core faculty member of the USF Institute for Microbiomes. Dr. Yadav’s NIH and U.S. Department of Defense-supported research focuses on role of the microbiome in the gut-brain axis, including how microbiome modulators like probiotics, diet, and medications may improve mood. He directs the institute’s Center for Microbiome Research, which organizes technologies and resources for microbial studies, including human microbiome/probiotics biorepositories, tools to grow bacteria and perform fecal microbiota transplantation in transgenic models, and machines to sequence the genomes of microbes.
• Member of national microbiome cooperative network: USF recently became one of only 38 U.S. academic institutions granted membership to the Microbiome Centers Consortium over the last two years.
• USF Microbiome Research Awards: USF Health established competitive internal seed grants (up to $100,000 for two years) to advance early-phase microbiome research projects teaming investigators from two or more USF colleges or departments.
• Microbiome, Immunology and Infection Mitigation Hub: This research focus area, created as part of the Pandemic Response Research Network at USF, aims to develop precision therapies to reduce COVID-19 and other infections by investigating both nutritional regimens and nanoparticle delivery systems to modify gut microbiota.
• Partnership with the Global Virus Network: USF Health partnered with the Global Virus Network to offer the online course Microbiomes and their Impact on Viral Infections. World-renowned experts share the latest knowledge on the intestinal microbiome’s potential role in preventing, reducing, and treating infectious diseases, including
  COVID-19.

A leading expert on the role of monocytes and macrophages (types of immune cells) in atherosclerosis and other chronic inflammatory conditions delivered the keynote address Nov. 7 at the USF Health Heart Institute’s 2^nd Annual Scientific Colloquium.

Gwendalyn Randolph, PhD, an immunologist by training, began her career by studying how innate immune cells travel around the body and along the way began discovering connections between cardiovascular disease, lipid metabolism and the gut.

USF Health Heart Institute Director Samuel Wickline, MD, with speakers at the Institute’s 2nd Annual Scientific Symposium. From left: David Lominadze, PhD, USF Health professor of surgery; Gwendalyn Randolph, PhD, Unanue Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; Dr. Wickline; and Travis Jackson, PhD, USF Health associate professor of molecular pharmacology and physiology.

For the Heart Institute talk, Dr. Randolph, the Emil R. Unanue Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, focused on research investigating what drives inflammation in atherosclerosis – the most common cause of heart attacks.  She shared her work on the trafficking of immune cells and the lipoproteins that carry cholesterol through the bloodstream to deposit inside the artery walls.

“Dr. Randolph’s work in the field of atherosclerosis has produced novel and important insights into the critical cell types that are responsible for forming atherosclerotic plaques in patients with heart disease,” said Samuel Wickline, MD, professor of cardiology and director of the USF Health Heart Institute. “She also has elucidated the molecular factors that attract these cells to plaques and cause them to grow and become unstable, which leads the plaques to break down and clot. This process can ultimately result in blockage of vessels that supply blood to the heart and brain, causing heart attacks and strokes.”

Research by Dr. Randolph, this year’s keynote speaker at the colloquium, has yielded new insights into how immune cells drive inflammation contributing to atherosclerotic plaques in heart disease.

Mouse model studies by Dr. Randolph and others have shown white blood cells, known as monocytes, contribute to the initial build-up of atherosclerotic plaques.

The cascade of events leading to atherosclerosis can take decades.  Initial damage to the inner wall (endothelium) of arteries under the influence of high cholesterol levels triggers a molecular signal that attracts monocytes to travel from the bloodstream into developing plaques. These recruited monocytes are converted into macrophages that take up (eat) the cholesterol trapped in blood vessels and eventually die off. But before that happens, they stay busy secreting molecules that drive plaque inflammation  and weaken the vessel wall, leading to plaque rupture, clotting, and coronary artery obstruction.

In terms of developing new therapies to halt or reverse atherosclerosis, Dr. Randolph said, her research suggests that upstream targeting of recruited monocytes — either before or just after these immune cells arrive in plaques — may be more beneficial than targeting the fat-laden macrophages known as foam cells. Experiments with fluorescent tracers indicate that monitoring endothelial cells lining the arterial wall may be a way to track monocyte migration, she added.

Thomas McDonald, MD, a professor in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s Department of  Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology and member of the Heart Institute, listens to Dr. Randolph’s talk.

In addition to Dr. Randolph, two new faculty members recruited this summer to the USF Health Heart Institute – Travis Jackson, PhD, and David Lominadze, PhD — provided overviews of their National Institutes of Health-funded research.

Dr. Jackson, an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, discussed his translational work in therapeutic hypothermia — investigating ways to optimize cold-shock proteins and cold-stress hormones to increase the benefits of cerebroprotective cooling for traumatic brain injury. Dr. Lominadze, a professor in the Department of Surgery, presented research looking into the interactions of blood cells and the endothelium, with the aim of better understanding the microcirculatory disorders associated with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.

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The USF Health Heart Institute is scheduled to move to the new USF Health Morsani College of Medicine building in Water Street Tampa in late February 2020.  Its annual scientific colloquium will be held in the new home next year, and continue to evolve with the growth of the Institute, Dr. Wickline said.

“We will expand the program to cover other topics of interest to the cardiovascular community such as genetic heart diseases, heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, and gene therapy.”

-Photos by Allison Long, USF Health Communications and Marketing