Prof. Joseph Sun Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA

Joseph C. Sun is a professor in the Immunology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His research is focused on the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind immunological memory. Recruited to New York in 2010 by Dr. James Allison, his lab is interested in defining the underlying epigenetic and transcriptional... read moresignals that govern T cell and natural killer (NK) cell proliferation, function, and memory cell formation during host defense against pathogens. He has a background in immunology, having trained with Dr. Mike Bevan in CD8+ T cell memory as a graduate student at the University of Washington. As a postdoc with Dr. Lewis Lanier at UCSF, he discovered that certain NK cell subsets possess adaptive immune features including clonal expansion and long-lived memory following viral infection. By gaining a better understanding of how these innate and adaptive arms of the immune system specifically attack virally-infected cells, and ‘remember’ these pathogens, more effective preventative and therapeutic approaches can be developed in the battle against infectious diseases.