Donna Bunch, PhD

Donna Bunch, PhD

Dr. Bunch’s research focuses on dissecting the role of B cells and the autoantibodies they produce in autoimmune diseases affecting the kidney. She investigates how normal regulatory mechanisms are circumvented to allow production of pathogenic antibodies and how these autoantibodies interact with immune cells to generate microparticles or cause the release of cytokines and other cellular factors leading to disease. Dr. Bunch and her co-workers discovered similar B cell aberrations in two autoimmune diseases that affect the kidney, antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCA) vasculitis and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). She is particularly interested in elucidating the mechanisms by which regulatory B cells help maintain immunological balance and promote disease remission. Her lab group identified a CD5+ B regulatory cell population that decreases during active disease and can serve as an indicator of clinical relapse. Whether these regulatory B cells, when normalized, are protective of future relapse is currently being tested in a randomized, proof-of-concept trial.

Her lab also investigates potential risk factors for thrombosis including anti-plasminogen antibodies and microparticle tissue factor activity in patients with glomerulonephritis and membranous nephropathy. Dr. Bunch’s goal is to translate our understanding of disease pathogenesis into better clinical tools for predicting relapse or other disease complications such as thrombosis and better therapies for management of diseases affecting the kidney.