Abstract:

The role of epithelial and stromal cells in driving inflammation, together with immune cells, is being increasingly appreciated. However, we currently lack tissue-scale frameworks to define and test how inflammation collectively impacts epithelial, stromal, and immune cells. This poses a fundamental challenge for understanding the cellular mechanisms that drive or sustain health and disease within and across barrier tissues such as the skin, airway, and intestine. Our lab is addressing this challenge by quantifying and controlling how inflammation changes the ecology of barrier tissues with single-cell resolution.

About Speaker:

José Ordovas-Montañes attended Tufts University, followed by graduate studies in the Harvard Immunology program. As an undergrad, José worked in human immunology labs at Biogen Idec, University College London, and Boston Children’s Hospital, where he focused on monogenic immune deficiencies. For his PhD work, José trained with Uli von Andrian, studying how the nervous system and the immune system function together as the principal sensory interfaces between the internal and external environments. As a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Laboratory of Alex K. Shalek at MIT, the Broad Institute, and the Ragon Institute, he began charting maps of human gut and airway, and discovered how human stem cells can be shaped by, and remember, inflammation. José started his group in 2019 at Boston Children’s Hospital and is supported by a talented team undergraduate students, graduate students, technicians and colleagues.