About

Professor Li-Fan Lu received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth College. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of Washington and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He currently serves as the Co-Director of the Program in Immunology at UC San Diego and is the President of the La Jolla Immunology Conference. His research focuses on immunology, with particular interest in cellular and humoral immunity, tissue-specific immune regulation of Tregs, and the molecular mechanisms controlling germinal center responses and humoral immunity.

Research topics

• Biology
• Cell biology
• Immunology

Selected publications

• Heterogeneity and clonal relationships of adaptive immune cells in ulcerative colitis revealed by single-cell analyses

  Science Immunology · 2020 · 274 citations

  • Biology
  • Immunology
  • Genetics

  cells in IBD.

  DOI

• Thymic epithelial miR-155 promotes regulatory T cell development through safeguarding medullary thymic epithelial cell maturation

  The Journal of Immunology · 2020

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Cell biology
  • Biology
  • Immunology

  Abstract During thymocyte development, medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) provide appropriate instructive cues in the thymic microenvironment for not only negative selection but also the generation of regulatory T (Treg) cells. Here, we identify that miR-155, a microRNA whose expression in Treg cells has previously been shown to be crucial for their development and homeostasis, also contributes to thymic Treg (tTreg) cell differentiation by promoting mTEC maturation. Mechanistically, we show that RANKL stimulation induces expression of miR-155 to safeguard the thymic medulla through targeting multiple known and previously uncharacterized molecules within the TGFβ signaling pathway, which is recognized for its role in restricting the maturation and expansion of mTECs. Our work uncovers a miR-155-TGFβ axis in the thymic medulla to determine mTEC maturity and, consequently, the quantity of tTreg cells and suggests that miR-155 ensures proper tTreg cell development in both cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic manners.

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Ling-Li Lin

  University of California, San Diego

  8 shared

• Sunglim Cho

  6 shared

• Cheng-Jang Wu

  University of California, San Diego

  6 shared

• Leilani O. Cruz

  University of California, San Diego

  4 shared

• Hyang‐Mi Lee

  Dongduk Women's University

  4 shared

• Aly A. Khan

  University of Chicago

  3 shared

• Duc T. Nguyen

  Johns Hopkins Hospital

  3 shared

• Mei‐Chi Chen

  University of California, San Diego

  3 shared

Labs

• Lu LabPI

Awards & honors

• K99/R00 Career Development Award through NIAID (2011)

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