Dr. Carl Ware has joined Sanford-Burnham’s faculty as Director of the Infectious and Inflammatory Disease Center (IIDC). Although, this is the first time Dr. Ware has been employed at Sanford-Burnham, his roots with the Institute go back to 1996. That’s  when he, Dr. John Reed, Dr. Guy Salvesen and others began a collaborative project to study apoptosis and cell death. That same year, Dr. Ware joined the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, where he led the Division of Molecular Immunology. Over the years, he has maintained strong ties with Sanford-Burnham.Dr. Ware’s research focuses on the fundamental pathways that control cytokines, a family of proteins involved in immune signaling. One group of cytokines, called tumor necrosis factors or TNF, are part of an intricate communication network between immune system cells.

“They’re complicated circuits,” says Dr. Ware. “There are more than two dozen proteins in this family and an equal number of receptors. The pathways involve hundreds of proteins. In infectious disease, these pathways are amplified in a very dramatic fashion. In autoimmune disease the pathways escape regulatory control entirely. Something just goes haywire. However, with any circuit, theoretically, you can rewire around it.”

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