[3][4] BRI researchers has studied on how immune cells contribute to rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and other diseases.

[11] In the late 1990s, William Kwok and Nepom developed MHC class II tetramer technology that helps researchers find and study antigen-specific T cells.

[12] These tetramers are customized (using different HLA combinations) for use to study how the immune system responds to diseases and pathogens, including influenza, human papillomavirus, allergies, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.

[21] In 2016, BRI received a five-year, $8 million NIH grant to lead a collaboration that studies how the immune system responds to allergens in the lungs and how those trigger asthma attacks.

[24] In 2017, BRI's Erik Wambre and his colleagues identified a type of cell, called Th2A, that appears to drive all allergies.

[26][25] In 2018, BRI's Emma L. Kuan and Steven F. Ziegler discovered that a protein called thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) helps breast cancer tumors survive and spread.

Compared to babies who were solely breast-fed, infants who ate solid food slept for two more hours per week and woke up two fewer times per night.

[29][30] In 2018, BRI's Bernard Khor was awarded an NIH grant to investigate why nearly 50 percent of people with Down syndrome have autoimmune diseases.

[31] In June 2019, BRI and Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet showed that an immunotherapy drug called teplizumab delayed T1D for a median of two years for those at high risk for the disease.

[33] In May 2019, they received a grant from the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, JDRF, and The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to study why some checkpoint inhibitor patients develop an autoimmune response that resembles type 1 diabetes.

[38] In late August 2020, BRI researchers discovered a new pathway that can help protect cells from viruses including COVID-19 and Ebola.