Mechanoregulation of Cytotoxic Lymphocyte Function

I trained as a structural biologist/peptide chemist, with John Kuriyan and Tom Muir at Rockefeller University, before carrying out postdoctoral research with Mark Davis and Stanford. There, I became interested in the structure and function of immune cell-cell interactions. I joined the Immunology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2007. My lab has primarily focused on the cytotoxic immune synapse, which is the specialized junction used by cytotoxic lymphocytes to destroy infected or transformed target cells. Over the past decade, we have become particularly interested in the mechanobiology of this interface, in particular how physical forces and mechanical properties shape its potency and specificity. My talk will address the role of lymphocyte mechanosensing in anti-tumor immune responses.