Research Associate Professor of Medicine with extensive research experience in the pharmaceutical industry, clinical GLP laboratory and academic environments. My major areas of research expertise are in the evaluation of immune responses to malignant tumors as well as the development of cancer vacci...
Research Associate Professor of Medicine with extensive research experience in the pharmaceutical industry, clinical GLP laboratory and academic environments. My major areas of research expertise are in the evaluation of immune responses to malignant tumors as well as the development of cancer vaccines and therapies. I have extensive experience developing and implementing assays characterizing cellular and humoral immune responses for both preclinical and clinical studies.
Faculty Appointments
Research Associate Professor
-
Department of Medicine, Nephrology (SMD)
Credentials
Education
PhD | SUNY Coll at Buffalo.Biological Science.1997
BS | SUNY Coll at Buffalo.Biological Science.1992
Awards
Porter Anderson Immunobiology Fellow.2003
Recipient of a 2002 Wyeth Above and Beyond Award for Research Excellence2002
Nominated for the 2002 Wyeth Eagles Leadership Development Program2002
NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship Recipient, 20002000
NYS Breast Cancer Research and Educational Postdoctoral Fellowship Recipient, 19981998
Research
My research for the last 17 years has been in the immunobiology of regulatory T cells, T follicular helper cells, and B cell differentiation, in both mice and human subjects. My specific expertise includes developing and applying innovative immunological research methods to study immunobiology in pr...
My research for the last 17 years has been in the immunobiology of regulatory T cells, T follicular helper cells, and B cell differentiation, in both mice and human subjects. My specific expertise includes developing and applying innovative immunological research methods to study immunobiology in primary human samples, especially normal lymphocytes and lymphomas. My research has included genotypic-phenotypic characterization of lymphocyte cellular subsets by combined transcriptomics and flow cytometry. I have specific expertise in research human B and T cell research where cell numbers are typically limiting. In particular, as the Technical Director of the Lymphoma Lab at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center from 2004-2013, I have published several key studies using novel T cell functional assays with single cell RNAseq from fine needle aspirate (FNA) lymph node biopsies of lymphoma patients. Over the last 5 years, I have developed my own independent research work, with a focus on multidisciplinary transcriptomic and proteomic analysis of B cell differentiation and migration. This work has evolved from collaborations with Drs. Juilee Thakar and Martin Zand, including an RO1 (R01-AI134058-01A1) in which we propose to characterize and model the molecular mechanisms by which changes in oxygen levels modulate human B cell migration. The work involves defining and modeling how human B cells respond to infection or vaccination upon encountering different oxygen levels as they are activated/differentiate within the developing germinal center of the draining lymph node and migrate from the lymph node (1-5% oxygen) to the peripheral blood (5-13% oxygen) ultimately ending up in the bone marrow (5-7%). These studies will fill a critical gap in our understanding of human B cell responses, specifically the effects differing oxygen levels have on human B cells as they migrate within and from one anatomical compartment to another. We are now extending this work into HIV vaccination. My prior work involved studies directly related to the current proposal, including complex parallel flow cytometry, ELISpot, ELISA, RNAseq, and proteomics analysis. Lastly, throughout my tenure at the University of Rochester, I have successfully collaborated with a number of other researchers and produced several peer-reviewed publications, including publications with Dr. Thakar performing high-resolution proteomics and transcriptomics studies.
Wang J, Hilchey SP, DeDiego M, Perry S, Hyrien O, Nogales A, Garigen J, Amanat F, Huertas N, Krammer F, Martinez-Sobrido L, Topham DJ, Treanor JJ, Sangster MY, Zand MS
