Dr. August is interested in how T cells in the immune system receive signals to mount an immune response.

Dr. August was born in Belize and immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager in the mid-1980s. He dropped out of high school in the 11th grade, but after getting his GED was able to start community college. After two years in community college, he transferred to California State University, where he was persuaded to get involved in research and go to graduate school. He earned his Ph.D. at Cornell’s Graduate School of Medical Science in New York City (now Weill Cornell) and did his postdoctoral work at The Rockefeller University. After a job at Johnson & Johnson, he was hired to the faculty at Penn State, and was recruited to Cornell in 2008. In 2014, he gave the E.E. Just Lecture at the American Society of Cell Biology conference.

Dr. August studies the immune system, which protects us from infection by bacteria and other pathogens. An invading bacterial cell (like almost any cell) will be “presenting” many proteins on its external membrane — these membrane-bound proteins are an important part of how cells send and receive signals. However, some of these proteins will be recognized by the host cells (e.g. the human cells) as foreign. These proteins are called antigens, because they cause B cells in the host to make antibodies that recognize them. Once a host cell recognizes and attacks a foreign invading cell, it will take some of its antigens and attach them to its own external membrane. These “antigen-presenting” cells will then find a T cell and give the antigen to the T cell, which will then become activated to find and kill any cell that presents this antigen. (Once a T cell is activated, it will only recognize that one antigen, so each new antigen-presenting cell will have to find a new, inactive “naive” T cell.)

Dr. August is interested in a family of proteins called Tec kinases, and one member in particular called Itk. In mice where Itk has been removed, T cell activation is impaired: specifically, activation no longer involves the same big rush of calcium into the cell and the T cells do not produce as many signaling molecules (cytokines). These mice also seem to be protected against getting asthma. Dr. August is working to better understand this connection and to learn what exactly Itk is doing and why its so important.