Jacob Hochfelder (BRYSON LAB)

Context-dependent Macrophage Repolarization

Macrophages adopt a wide functional diversity across nearly every tissue. However, recent breakthroughs have debunked the established model of unrestricted plasticity in macrophage differentiation. These restrictions on plasticity are not fully understood. Systematic network level analysis was used to characterize the landscape of macrophage fate decisions. Here, we show signals that restrict cell states which are crucial for pathogen clearance. We propose a conceptual framework to understand how macrophages integrate signals over time.

Allie Lemmer (BIRNBAUM LAB)

Structure-based Site-directed Mutagenesis of T cell Receptors (TCRs) to Improve TCR-T cell Therapies

T cells detect infected or cancerous cells via their T cell receptors (TCRs) and trigger downstream signaling that enables pathogen and cancer clearance. TCR-T cell therapy takes advantage of this biology by introducing TCRs engineered to recognize cancer antigens into patient T cells. Current engineering strategies have shown some success, but they are antigen specific and labor intensive, and further can result in severe or fatal toxicities. We propose a new TCR engineering strategy that could address these limitations. Based on this, we design and conduct high throughput library screens of TCR variants to identify safer and more sensitive TCRs for TCR-T cell therapy.