P’ng Loke, PhD

Chief, Type 2 Immunity Section

Our research goal is to understand the heterogeneity of type-2 immune responses during helminth infections. Type-2 immunity induced by helminth infections may be therapeutically beneficial for improving symptoms of inflammatory bowel diseases and metabolic syndrome, but this may also benefit only specific subsets of individuals. The mechanisms underlying the heterogeneity of type-2 responses between individuals still remains poorly understood. We believe that characterizing these mechanisms will enable us to develop strategies to utilize helminth infections as treatment for specific inflammatory conditions (e.g., autoimmune diseases and metabolic conditions) for the right individuals, as well as designing better approaches toward limiting pathology that is caused by helminth infections. Our basic immunological studies on macrophage biology and our translational research studies on the microbiota are converging toward the goal of understanding factors that regulate variation of type-2 immune responses in humans. Using a combination of mouse models, as well as field and clinical studies, our future plans are to test some of the concepts that we have developed on chromatin remodeling in macrophage responses to type-2 cytokines, as well as helminth-microbiota interactions, in mouse models, field studies and also human challenge infections.

Suggested Penn mentors: Igor Brodsky, De'Broski Herbert, Nan Zhang, Taku Kambayashi