Dr. Chen Dong

Regular Member

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Immunology

Research Interests:

• Immune tolerance and autoimmune mechanisms
• Signal transduction in the immune system
• Cytokines and inflammation
• Tumor immunology

Our research is to understand the molecular mechanisms whereby immune responses are normally regulated, and how abnormal immune regulation leads to immunodeficiency, autoimmunity and allergy disorders. These studies will help us to understand and manipulate the immune system, and to ultimately develop immune therapies for treating autoimmune and allergic diseases, and for eliminating infectious diseases and cancer.

A tutorial student would be involved in research in the following areas: First, studying the costimulatory factors through which the innate immune system regulates the activation, tolerance and function of T cells; secondly, the signal transduction mechanisms during innate and adaptive immune responses, with particular interests in dissecting MAP kinase or protein ubiquitination regulation in immune cells; thirdly, the regulation of inflammatory responses by novel cytokines, their regulation and signal transduction mechanisms.

Selected Publications:

Nurieva, R. I., Chung, Y., Martinez, G. J., Yang, X. O., Tanaka, S., Matskevitch, T. D., Wang, Y.-H. and Dong, C. Bcl6 mediates the development of T follicular helper cells. (2009) Science. 325: 1001 - 1005.

Martin-Orozco, N., Muranski, P., Chung, Y., Yang, X. O., Yamazaki, T., Lu, S., Hwu, P., Restifo, N. P., Overwijk, W. W. and Dong, C. T helper 17 cells promote cytotoxic T cell activation in tumor immunity. (2009) Immunity. 31, 787–798.

Yang, X. O., Angkasekwinai, P., Liu, Z.-D., Zhu, J., Peng, J., Nurieva, R., Chang, S. H., Sun, B., and Dong, C. Requirement for the basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor Dec2 in initial TH2 lineage commitment. (2009) Nature Immunology. 10: 1260 - 1266.

Angkasekwinai, P., Chang, S. H., Thapa, M., Watarai, H. and Dong, C. Regulation of IL-9 expression by IL-25 signaling. (2010) Nature Immunology. 11:250-256.

Nurieva, R. I., Zheng, S., Jin, W., Chung, Y., Martinez, G. J., Zhang, Y., Reynolds, J. M., Wang, S.-L., Lin, X., Sun, S.-C., Lozano, G. and Dong, C. The E3 ubiquitin ligase GRAIL regulates T cell tolerance and regulatory T cell function by mediating T cell receptor-CD3 degradation. (2010) Immunity. 32, 670–680.

Additional Publications

Program Affiliation:

Program in Immunology