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Steven Siegel
MD, PhD
Instructor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Information
Related Research Units
Research Overview
Dr. Siegel's research focuses on ways to reduce complications from hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) in children. He leads a collaboration between the labs of Drs. Leslie Kean and Seth Rakoff-Nahoum to study the gut microbiome during pediatric HCT. HCT can be a life-saving treatment, but its use is limited by complications including infections and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). The microbiome, the microbes that colonize the human gut, has been associated with HCT outcomes, and therefore has emerged as a possible way to diagnose and intervene on these complications. The studies linking an altered gut microbiome to HCT complications have largely been in adults, however, and their conclusions are not necessarily applicable to children, in whom the gut microbiome is undergoing rapid and significant shifts. In the Rakoff-Nahoum and Kean labs, Dr. Siegel studies the gut microbiome before, during and after pediatric HCT to close this gap in knowledge and improve our ability to limit HCT complications.
Research Background
Dr. Siegel completed his MD and PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. His PhD training in Dr. Jeffrey Weiser’s lab focused on how pathogens exploit inflammation to promote infection, studying how the pneumococcus takes advantage of the host response to influenza infection to promote colonization. While in pediatric residency at Boston Children's Hospital, he joined the labs of Drs. Seth Rakoff-Nahoum and Richard Cummings to study host mucosal glycans used by colonizing members of the gut microbiome. This work continued during pediatric infectious diseases fellowship at BCH, and was funded by the Pediatric Scientist Development Program. After completing fellowship, he joined the faculty of the division of Infectious Diseases and is a postdoctoral fellow in the Rakoff-Nahoum lab as well as that of Dr. Leslie Kean, focusing on the intersection of the gut microbiome and pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT). He is funded by a BCH Office of Faculty Development career development award.
Education
Graduate School
University of Pennsylvania
2014
Philadelphia
PA
Medical School
University of Pennsylvania
2016
Philadelphia
PA
Residency
Pediatrics, Accelerated Research Pathway
Boston Children's Hospital
2018
Boston
MA
Fellowship
Pediatric Infectious Diseases
Boston Children's Hospital
2022
Boston
MA
Publications
- Clearance of Pneumococcal Colonization in Infants Is Delayed through Altered Macrophage Trafficking. PLoS Pathog. 2015 Jun; 11(6):e1005004. View Abstract
- Mechanisms of Bacterial Colonization of the Respiratory Tract. Annu Rev Microbiol. 2015; 69:425-44. View Abstract
- TLR2 signaling decreases transmission of Streptococcus pneumoniae by limiting bacterial shedding in an infant mouse Influenza A co-infection model. PLoS Pathog. 2014 Aug; 10(8):e1004339. View Abstract
- Influenza promotes pneumococcal growth during coinfection by providing host sialylated substrates as a nutrient source. Cell Host Microbe. 2014 Jul 09; 16(1):55-67. View Abstract
- TRIM protein-mediated regulation of inflammatory and innate immune signaling and its association with antiretroviral activity. J Virol. 2013 Jan; 87(1):257-72. View Abstract
- Activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase, Slt2p, at bud tips blocks a late stage of endoplasmic reticulum inheritance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol Biol Cell. 2010 May 15; 21(10):1772-82. View Abstract
- RNase 1 genes from the family Sciuridae define a novel rodent ribonuclease cluster. Mamm Genome. 2009 Nov-Dec; 20(11-12):749-57. View Abstract
- Functionally competent eosinophils differentiated ex vivo in high purity from normal mouse bone marrow. J Immunol. 2008 Sep 15; 181(6):4004-9. View Abstract
- Eosinophils from lineage-ablated Delta dblGATA bone marrow progenitors: the dblGATA enhancer in the promoter of GATA-1 is not essential for differentiation ex vivo. J Immunol. 2007 Aug 01; 179(3):1693-9. View Abstract