Faculty & Scientific Staff

Christine Bender obtained her PhD in Biological Sciences at the University Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 2016. Her thesis work focused on islet transplantation using the RIP-LCMV mouse model for type 1 diabetes and was performed in the laboratory of Prof. Urs Christen, Dept of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Goethe University Hospital Frankfurt. Before joining the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason in Seattle, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Matthias von Herrath at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.

Her major project was to study antigen-specific CD8 T cells, in the pancreas from donors with type 1 diabetes and healthy donors with the overall goal to improve our understanding of the role of antigen-specific CD8 T cells in the disease before and after diagnosis. Thereafter, she began working as a senior postdoctoral researcher in the group of Dr. Alice Long at BRI in June of 2021.

Her current research includes two projects in the setting of type 1 diabetes. Her first project focuses on a better understanding of ex vivo expanded regulatory T cells as adoptive therapy for type 1 diabetes. In her second project, Dr. Bender analyzes and interprets clinical data to identify biomarkers predicting type 1 diabetes disease progression or response to therapy.