PhD
Assistant Professor, Biochemistry and Biophysics
UNC-Chapel Hill
Immunology
Area of Interest
Innate immunity plays a critical role in several aspects of human health including host defense, autoimmune diseases, senescence, aging, and anti-cancer immunity. Due to its fundamental role, many of the pathways, proteins, and functions within innate immunity are highly conserved across diverse organisms. Notably, numerous key components of human immunity are thought to have originated from bacterial immune systems, which protect against viral (phage) infection, based on significant functional and structural similarities.
The Jenson Lab focuses on unraveling the fundamental molecular mechanisms that govern these conserved immune systems, with a particular interest in understanding the function and regulation of cGAS-like proteins. In humans, cGAS detects infection by sensing double-stranded DNA in the cytosol and, in response, produces a cyclic-RNA signaling molecule that activates a pro-inflammatory signaling pathway. In bacteria, a viral cue activates cGAS-like proteins, which produce cyclic-RNA second messengers that trigger cell death before the phage has completed its replication cycle.
Using a multidisciplinary approach encompassing biochemistry, genetics, and structural biology, the Jenson lab seeks to elucidate the mechanisms underlying the regulation of cGAS-like proteins in bacteria. Given the functional and structural conservation of cGAS-like proteins across species, investigating bacterial cGAS-like proteins holds promise to shed light on the evolution and function of their human counterpart.
Awards and Honors
- Brown-Goldstein Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UT Southwestern Medical Center, 2023
- CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship, Cancer Research Institute, 2019-2021
- MIT School of Science Graduate Fellowship in Cancer Research, 2015-2016
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2012-2015
- Bench-to-Bedside Medical Device Design Grand Prize, University of Utah, 2011
