Children’s Research Institute Seminar Series “Interleukin 6 Regulation of T Cell Metabolism and Function”

Dr. Yazan Alwarawrah is a Research Assistant Professor who is interested in targeting metabolism for the treatment of disease. Currently, he is studying T cell metabolism in the context of obesity-associated protective immunity dysfunction where he uses the diet induced obesity mouse model to study the effect of obesity on T cell metabolism and function in different tissues using metabolic and flow cytometric approaches. He is specifically interested in the role of T cell metabolic dysfunction in the impairment of protective immunity against influenza. He also works on studying Immunity Related GTPase I (Irgm1) regulation of T cell metabolism and function and its role in protective immunity and autoimmunity, and he works on the metabolic engineering of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to enhance their persistence in the tumor microenvironment. He has a diverse scientific background ranging from molecular biology and bioinformatics to pharmacology and immunology. He seeks challenging questions in cellular metabolism and immunology that can lead to finding treatments for obesity associated pathologies, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.

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