2024

Research: Powassan virus is a tickborne virus endemic in the US, where the number of reported human infections increases each year. Severe disease often includes development of encephalitis and may inflict long term and life altering effects on the brain. My research focuses on how the virus is maintained in nature and I am investigating whether the reported rodent reservoir is actually a part of the transmission cycle with ticks. Additionally, I am interested in further exploring Powassan virus pathogenesis in a mouse model.

Research: Our lab studies how cascades of cells initiate type 2 responses, and allergic responses when they are abnormally activated. My research focused on allergic diseases, more specific, how atopic dermatitis potentially induces the formation of food allergy and asthma. We found skin-derived cytokines provide spatially decoupled signal that can remotely activate T cells at distal sites like intestine and lung, which is different from the classical pattern of T cell activation. 

Research: Trimethylguanosine synthase (TGS1) plays an essential role in RNA biology, where it catalyzes hypermethylation of the 7-methylguanosine cap to 2,2,7-
trimethylguanosine cap. This epitranscriptomic modification licenses select host
and viral mRNAs for a specialized translation pathway that bypasses mTOR
inhibition. While the importance of this pathway is only starting to be recognized,
it has been implicated in important diseases including cancer and HIV-1 infection.

Research: Max is studying macrophages in the tumor microenvironment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and how macrophages can act as a method of targeting TNBC. Max is researching LYVE1+ macrophages, a subset of tumor-promoting macrophages that are also important for removing apoptotic cells in TNBC tumors through efferocytosis. Max is interested in how this efferocytosis impacts the gene expression of LYVE1+ macrophages and how that might be connected to their tumor-promoting phenotype. 

Research: My research is focused on understanding how immune cell interactions with NK cellular therapies influence solid tumor microenvironments in humanized mouse models of ovarian cancer. Ultimately, we hope to understand how 1) model choice influences evaluation of NK cellular therapies and 2) how these interactions correlate with clinical outcomes.

Research: People are living longer and world populations are growing older. Despite this, elderly individuals are more susceptible to numerous diseases and infections, particularly those driven by chronic inflammation. CD8+ T cells are important infection mediators that become dysfunctional during aging and thus contribute to pathogen persistence. In my thesis work, I aim to understand drivers of age-related CD8+ T cell responses, simultaneously differentiating cell-extrinsic and cell-intrinsic contributors of age-attributed pathogen persistence.

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