Developmental Immune Niche
The immune cells are characterized by high plasticity, exhibiting wide variety of functions and states. Different immune cell types such as macrophages, basophils, and T cells, are highly responsive to tissue-specific cues, and can acquire tissue-specific phenotypes according to exclusive microenvironmental signals.
‘Interaction-State’ of Cancer
The tumor microenvironment is a complex and heterogeneous niche, comprised of different cell types from immune, epithelial and stromal lineages. While the advanced genomic technologies, which led to a great progress in our understanding of different cell states, make a great impact on the tumor microenvironment research and the cancer immunotherapy field, crucial knowledge about cellular crosstalk, mechanisms of immune suppression, tumor antigen presentation, and cancer cell dissemination are still limited.
Technology
Technology advancements are the basis for tomorrow’s Science. Our lab applies high-throughput genomic technologies, based on single-cell RNA sequencing, alongside advanced computational analysis. We explore and molecularly characterize the ‘interaction state’ of cellular crosstalk between immune cells and epithelial or stromal cells using novel methods, such as physically interacting cell sequencing (PIC-seq), and ligand-receptor interactome mapping. Our lab is developing experimental (clinical samples and mouse models) and computational techniques to improve our knowledge regarding biological processes involving cellular communication.
