Jean Choi L&S Biological Sciences
A Multi-Modal Analysis of Chemokine-Guided Thymocyte Migration
T cells are a key part of the adaptive immune system, responsible for recognizing and responding to specific pathogens to protect the body from infection. Immature T cells, called thymocytes, develop through a complex process in the thymus. One very important part of this process involves interactions with the thymic environment to ensure they can recognize the body’s own MHC molecules. Thymocytes that bind self peptide-MHC with moderate strength survive through positive selection, while those that bind too strongly are eliminated through negative selection to prevent autoimmunity.
Chemokine receptors guide thymocytes through distinct compartments of the thymus during this process, but how their responsiveness is dynamically regulated to ensure proper niche occupancy and access to developmental signals remains unclear. In this project, I will use a combination of genetic tools, defined peptide molecules, and thymic slice culture to directly manipulate the thymic microenvironment and assess how altering chemokine-receptor interactions at different developmental stages influences thymocyte migration and T cell fate.
Message To Sponsor
Thank you for your generous support of my SURF project! My research on how chemokine-mediated thymocyte migration influences T cell development involves rigorous, time-intensive experiments, and I am thrilled to fully immerse myself in this research over the summer. I look forward to building on the skills and knowledge I've accrued so far and diving deeper into my passion for investigating the thymic microenvironment for T cell development to explore new dimensions of this field.