Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Our lab studies interactions of immune cells with vascular endothelium and tissue environments in immunity, inflammation, and tolerance. We pioneered the discovery of adhesion and chemotactic mechanisms underlying lymphocyte trafficking, and formulated the multistep paradigm of leukocyte recruitment, foundational for understanding immune specificity and therapeutic targeting.
There has never been a more exciting time in science: We are now integrating single-cell transcriptomics and computational biology with laboratory studies to map the diversity and plasticity of immune and vascular systems. These approaches have uncovered molecular mechanisms of lymphocyte homing to the respiratory mucosae, identified GPR25 as a chemoattractant receptor critical for mucosal and CNS immunity, and exposed novel roles for somatostatin-SSTR2 signaling in T cell progenitor trafficking for the establishment of the gut immune system. A major new focus is in leveraging deep learning, AlphaFold-based structure modeling, and AI-driven data mining to accelerate our biological discovery at scale, and to uncover new ligand-receptor interactions and new therapeutic targets.
By combining computational and experimental approaches the lab is discovering fundamental principles of vascular and immune system integration, identifying novel targets and designing methods to reprogram immune cell migration to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases, and inflammatory disorders.
