Understanding and enhancing the distinction between self and non/altered self

The immune system has a remarkable ability to distinguish between healthy (self) and non-healthy (non/altered self) cells and eliminate only the latter. This process can depend on a single cell or millions of cells that transmit information to one another.

Using and developing genetic and genomic tools we aim to augment, redirect, and generate new types of immune responses to eliminate and reprogram “altered self” cells, including cancer, senescent, virally infected, and other types of dysfunctional disease driving cells.

How? By decoding and integrating mechanisms that have evolved for millions of years and are imprinted in immune and non-immune cells with mechanisms that we “evolve” and rationally design in the lab through synthetic biology and directed evolution.