Deborah Lewinsohn trained as a physician scientist at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and has been in practice as a board-certified Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist since 1998. As a Pediatric Infectious Disease fellow, she studied HIV immunobiology and focused on the contribution of CD8+ T cell dysfunction to HIV disease progression within the context of a human adoptive immunotherapy trial utilizing autologous HIV Gag-specific CD8+ T cells. Since joining the OHSU faculty, her laboratory is focused on understanding the role of the developing immune system on the susceptibility of young children to TB disease and on the role of CD8+ T cells in host defense to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection.

Her laboratory is run jointly with Dr. David Lewinsohn, who is a Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy & Critical Care Medicine, and whose interest is on the immune system’s ability to detect and respond to intracellular infection with Mtb.  As a result, the laboratory provides a rich environment spanning basic immune mechanisms underlying the cellular immunology and cellular biology of human infection with Mtb, to translation of these observations in TB endemic regions of the world.

Dr. Lewinsohn is also the Assistant Director of the Center for Global Child Health Research, which is focused on collaborative research in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of childhood infection.