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Lab Members

Research Associates:

Yujun Huang - Postdoctoral Fellow

Mohd. Mushtaq Husain - Postdoctoral Fellow

Florence Lambolez - Research Scientist

Understanding the biology of intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) of the small intestine, in particular the mechanism that drives differentiation and selection of CD8aa TCRab IEL, had been the main focus of my research since 1998 when I started my graduate studies in Paris, France. I joined Hilde's lab in 2004 in order to further characterize and understand thymic agonist selection of CD8aa TCRab IEL. Indeed, we described for the first time the pathway of differentiation where precursors go through an immature CD8aa expressing DP stage (called triple positive or TP). This later finding leads us to hypothetize that TP precursors might be committed to the CD8aa IEL lineage during b-selection. Our major work focuses now on understanding the role of the pre-TcR in this lineage commitment. Another area of my research interest is to understand how this thymic selection process based on high avidity interaction can shape the TCR repertoire of IEL and later to further characterize the antigen CD8aa TcRab IEL is recognizing locally in the gut environment. The understanding of these unique T cells is of ultimate importance in order to define the protective and regulatory functions of these mucosal T cells.