The Frelinger lab has three major efforts - first, to understand how the bacteria Francisella tularensis alters host immune responses for its benefit; second, to understand how the T cell repertoire impacts immunity, especially in responses to influenza and West Nile virus; and third, to development and apply Next Generation Sequencing-based informatics pipelines for the analysis of the T cell receptor repertoire. The goal is to use that information to better understand how the repertoire impacts the immune response and subsequently susceptibility to infections, cancer, and autoimmunity.