Studying how inflammation drives memory formation in human barrier tissues

Our research

Understanding the principles of how inflammation drives memory formation in human barrier tissues in order to program and re-program them in human disease

We are developing an interdisciplinary training environment composed of immunologists, engineers, computational biologists, and others that harnesses emerging techniques to answer fundamental questions of biological and clinical relevance in barrier tissue biology. We use a variety of techniques such as single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq), organoid models, epigenetic profiling, flow cytometry, and microscopy in an effort to answer pressing questions surrounding human health and disease. The fundamental questions we try to answer through our work in the lab are:
Which cellular compartments harbor memories of inflammation in tissue, and how might we develop effective mechanisms by which to promote or erase them? In short, where are health and disease stored in a tissue?

Our team
Jose
Jose Ordovas-Montanes
Sam
Sam Kazer
Lillian
Lillian Juttukonda
Marc
Marc Elosua-Bayes
Peter
Peter Lotfy
Andrew
Andrew Kwong
Josh
Joshua De Sousa Casal
Jaclyn
Jaclyn Long
Isabelle
Isabelle Oliver
Hannah
Hannah Matthews
Kyle
Kyle Kimler
Faith
Faith Taliaferro
Amanda
Amanda Frischmann
Jackson
Jackson Larlee
Rose
Rose Hedderman
Sydney
Sydney Mullin
Matt
Matthew Morabito

We are located in the Enders Building of Boston Children’s Hospital in the Longwood Medical Area. We’re always looking to grow our team!

Selected publications
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Allergic inflammatory memory in human respiratory epithelial progenitor cells. Ordovas-Montanes et al. Nature (2018)

Intra-and inter-cellular rewiring of the human colon during ulcerative colitis. Smillie et al. Cell (2019)
Are we there yet? An immune field trip through human embryonic development.
Niederlova et al. Immunity (2022)
Primary nasal viral infection rewires the tissue-scale memory response. Kazer et al. Immunity (2024)
News

The Boston Children's Hospital Cell Discovery Network is live!
October 2023
The Cell Discovery Network here at Boston Children's Hospital is now live! The Cell Discovery network is a new collaborative initiative that aims to help drive transformative cures for pediatric disease by listening carefully to each cell in every child using single-cell science. Read more about the Cell Discovery Network here.

Sam's paper is accepted at Immunity!
April 2024
Our amazing postdoc Sam's paper titled "Primary nasal viral infection rewires the tissue-scale memory response" has been accepted at Immunity! This effort was undertaken by Sam, with great contributions from JOM Lab alum Erica. Congrats Sam and Erica and all other contributors!

Jaclyn and Faith featured in Bangladeshi newspaper, The Daily Star!
April 2024
Jaclyn and Faith's efforts helping bring single-cell RNA sequencing to Bangladesh as part of the lab's Chan Zuckerberg Initiative collaboration were featured in Bangladeshi newspaper, The Daily Star. Read more here.

Affiliations