David Zemmour, MD, PhD
Principal Investigator
Hi! Welcome to the lab! I am a physician-scientist and came to Chicago in the Summer of 2022. I love the city, campus, and community here. I did my MD in Paris, France, at the Pierre and Marie Curie Medical school (now Sorbonne University Medical School). I then moved to Boston to pursue a Ph.D. in Immunology at Harvard. With Drs. Benoist and Mathis, two giants of immunology, my love story with regulatory T cells (Tregs) started. I studied their emerging role beyond controlling autoimmunity in regulating tissue homeostasis. By looking at the locus of FOXP3 closely, I made a fun observation that some reads didn’t map to annotated regions and thus discovered FLICR, a new long-non-coding RNA that controls FOXP3’s expression. My research leveraged novel technologies such as single-cell genomics to understand the transcriptional regulation underlying Treg functions in tissues at the basis of Treg molecular engineering methods to promote homeostasis and prevent diseases (such as wound healing, colitis, and diabetes). After my Ph.D., my curiosity about disease mechanisms and technology drew me to Pathology. I completed a Clinical Pathology residency and a Hematopathology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital while continuing my work on Tregs. I focused on a rare primary immunodeficiency, IPEX, caused by mutations in FOXP3 that alter Tregs resulting in lethal systemic autoimmunity. Using single-cell genomics, I dissected the molecular mechanism of the disease, i.e., the transcriptional effect of FoxP3 mutations in Tregs, and proposed a two-step pathogenesis model with therapeutic implications. I am excited to build a community of scientists in the lab, working on T cells, Tregs and I am fascinated by understanding how cells communicate with each other. So simple in appearance but so complex.
Outside the lab, I love spending time with my little family (my badass wife, Chana, an architect) and my two little girls (Lea and Naomi). We go to the beach, the museum, and camping. We read, laugh, and live together.
Michelle Bessiake
PhD student – Pritzker school of Molecular Engineering
Michelle Bessiake is a PhD student in the lab. She received a B.S. in Chemistry at Texas Southern University. Her research focuses on understanding the cellular mechanisms in the onset of systemic autoimmunity caused by the dysfunction of Tregs in scurfy mice. Outside of lab she enjoys long-distance running, spending time with family, and adding to her Sci-fi book collection!
Emily Schahrer
PhD student – Committee of Cancer Biology
Hey! My name is Emily, and I am a PhD student in the Cancer Biology program. I am originally from Seattle, and I graduated from Chapman University with a B.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and a B.A. in Spanish. I am studying how Tregs can cause off-target inflammation in cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors. In my free time, I love to read and go on hikes!
Paul Chak Mou Ngai
PhD student – Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Hello! My name is Paul. I graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering. My research utilizes spatial imaging-based transcriptomics and proteomics technologies to unravel tissue-specific Treg signatures, their microenvironmental niches, and Treg ligand-receptor interactions. In my free time, I enjoy gaming, traveling, and cooking dishes from around the world!
Alumni
Layan Safi – 09/01/22 – 07/31/2023
Research Associate
Currently a medical student at Rosalind Franklin Medical School, Chicago, IL
Layan Safi is a research associate and lab manager. She received a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Macalester College. There, she majored in biology and neuroscience studies and minored in chemistry and psychology. Layan intends to pursue a career in healthcare with interests in immunology and pathology. In her free time, she enjoys reading, being outside, and drinking coffee.
Loqmen Anani – 03/20/2023 – 09/03/2023
Master student – Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon
Hey! I am a Master’s student at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France. I study biology in general but I am gradually specializing in bioinformatics and more specifically in developing methods and models for biology research. I joined Zemmour lab at the end of February for an internship until the end of August. The main goal of my internship is to understand how Tregs are regulated. To do that, I am analyzing microscope data to understand where the Tregs are located in the tissue relative to other cells. Then, based on those data, I will maybe develop a model to find some parameters that influence the localisation and the number of Tregs.
In my free time, me and my wife spend a lot of time to discover Chicago as it is our first time in the US!