Awarded in 2023
Home Department: Immunology
Faculty Advisors: Sean Bendall (Pathology), Robert Tibshirani (Biomedical Data Science, Statistics), Crystal Mackall (Pediatrics - Hematology/Oncology), Jan Skotheim (Biology), and Markus Covert (Bioengineering)

Research Title: Integrating Experimental and Computational Methods to Understand the Link Between T cell Fate and Cell Cycle Progression

Research Description: Cell cycle progression and division are tightly linked to cell fate decisions across development of the hematopoietic system. Activated T cells enter the cell cycle and rapidly proliferate into diverse cell states with varied functional capacity that are crucial to establish protective immunity. Despite this tight link, there is a lack of experimental and computational tools that enable the study of T cell state, cell cycle dynamics, and division in tandem. The Bendall lab proposes studying the interplay of these systems by developing integrated experimental and computational single-cell tools, and combining these tools with drug screens targeting cell cycle regulators or T cell receptor signaling to advance our understanding of the patterns of T cell states during cell cycle. This work will give valuable insight into how cell cycle dynamics could be harnessed to reprogram T cell fate for optimizing therapeutic cells for cancer or cell rejuvenation.