Rachel Caspi

Rachel Caspi is a tenured Senior Investigator at the National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), serving as Section Head of the Immunoregulation Section and Chief of the Laboratory of Immunology. She concurrently holds an Adjunct Professorship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, bridging federal research and academic medicine.

Her doctoral training was completed in Israel followed by postdoctoral work at NIH, establishing her career-long focus on ocular immunology. Dr. Caspi pioneered the mouse model of autoimmune uveitis now used globally, fundamentally advancing the study of immune-mediated blindness.

Her research centers on breakdowns in immune tolerance to retinal antigens leading to uveitis, and mucosal immunity at the ocular surface. She employs cutting-edge approaches including gene-manipulated mice, multicolor flow cytometry, transcriptomics, and microbiome analysis to dissect T cell regulation (particularly Th17/Th1 pathways), retinal antigen presentation, and environmental triggers of autoimmunity. Her work spans fundamental mechanisms to translational immunotherapy development.

Analysis of her 2000-2020 publications reveals progressive refinement from gene therapy approaches toward intricate dissection of T cell subsets, microbiome interactions, and cytokine networks in ocular autoimmunity. This trajectory demonstrates increasing sophistication in modeling human disease mechanisms while maintaining therapeutic relevance across autoimmune conditions.

Her honors include:

• Friedenwald award (2010), among vision research's highest distinctions

As laboratory chief, she directs a multidisciplinary team investigating immunological privilege, tolerance mechanisms, and novel therapeutic strategies. Her >200 publications establish foundational knowledge for treating immune-mediated blindness, with methodologies applicable to systemic autoimmune disorders. Current work emphasizes microbiome-immune crosstalk and precision immunomodulation.

The Immunoregulation Section operates within NEI's Laboratory of Immunology, utilizing advanced genomic, cellular, and bioinformatic platforms to study immune responses in immunologically privileged sites, with strong emphasis on translational relevance to human uveitis.