Youjin Lee, PhD

The Lee laboratory delves into the immunological mechanisms governing cellular interactions within the tissue microenvironment. Our focus is to understand how these intricate dynamics dictate disease progression or resolution, particularly in autoimmune diseases and cancer. Our overarching objective is to establish a causal understanding between immune responses and the spatial organization of the cellular networks within the tissue landscape.

Our approach involves the application of a novel single-cell spatial sequencing platform, XYZeq. This technology enables us to achieve high resolution single-cell RNA sequencing, facilitating a comprehensive exploration of individual cellular transcriptomes while preserving the spatial context. By integrating spatial information with transcriptomic data, we aim to unravel the cellular heterogeneity that dictates distinct cell states, circuits, and behavior within the tissue microenvironment.

In tandem with these efforts, we leverage forward genetics using the CRISPR/Cas9 system to discover novel genes driving critical cellular phenotypes. Our research incorporates the use of human primary T cells and animal models of human diseases, thus providing a multifaceted approach to understanding disease mechanisms. We are working to couple CRISPR screens with spatially resolved single-cell RNA-seq platforms to not only map the cellular neighborhoods within the tissue microenvironment, but also to permit deeper insights into the cell-to-cell communication networks that shape the immune response.