Three Yale researchers have been selected for the newest cohort of nine scientists in the Investigator Program at Chan Zuckerberg Biohub New York (CZ Biohub NY). The program provides unrestricted funding for three years to pursue innovative and high-impact research projects, as well as access to cutting-edge tools, training opportunities, and a collaborative research community.

Yale's Jeffrey Ishizuka, Nikhil Joshi, and Esen Sefik join six scientists from Columbia University and Rockefeller University heading research projects that embody CZ Biohub NY’s mission to harness and bioengineer immune cells for the early detection, prevention, and treatment of a broad spectrum of age-related diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders and aggressive cancers.

The funded projects support a variety of innovative strategies, including leveraging synthetic biology to address the limitations of current immune cell therapies and using models to enable insights into cellular networks and tissue adaptations in health and disease.

“We are excited to welcome these new investigators to our collaborative community of researchers,” said Andrea Califano, Dr, president of CZ Biohub NY and the Clyde and Helen Wu Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “They are joining us as we pursue a complex challenge to harness the natural capabilities of our immune cells to detect and fix abnormalities in our bodies at very early stages. I look forward to their contributions and how we can shed light on biology’s hidden intricacies, making real progress toward detecting and preventing disease.”

Diseases are often diagnosed only after obvious symptoms appear, while early signals that precede disease are generally missed. Immune cells are well suited to meet this challenge, as they constantly monitor and maintain the health of organs and tissues while circulating through the blood and lymphatic systems. By deciphering the molecular language employed by these cells to report problems they’ve identified, researchers can leverage and augment the cells’ abilities to spot and even treat hard-to-detect cancers and diseases that usually evade these cells. Better understanding and measuring how immune cells monitor abnormalities also creates enormous potential to program new functions into these cells, allowing them to take therapeutic actions, such as repairing damaged cells or eliminating diseased ones.

The Investigator Program at CZ Biohub NY funds research by scientists, engineers, and technologists from Columbia, Rockefeller, and Yale, and is designed to identify and support researchers by providing them with unrestricted funding to pursue their most innovative and high-impact research projects. The nine new investigators will join a vibrant, collaborative, and supportive research community, gaining access to cutting-edge tools, expertise, and training opportunities.

The second cohort includes nine investigators and eight total projects (Drs. Spina and Worley will collaborate on the same project):

• Kivanç Birsoy, Ph.D., The Rockefeller University
• Tal Danino, Ph.D., Columbia School of Engineering
• Jeffrey Ishizuka, D. Phil., Yale University
• Nikhil Joshi, Ph.D., Yale University
• Aimee Payne, M.D., Ph.D., Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
• Esen Sefik, Ph.D., Yale University
• Catherine Spina, M.D., Ph.D., Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
• Ekaterina Vinogradova, Ph.D., The Rockefeller University
• Jeremy Worley, Ph.D., Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

One of the new investigator projects aims to identify strategies for how to engineer immunity to fight autoimmunity. Aimee Payne, M.D., Ph.D., chair and Herbert and Florence Irving Professor of Dermatology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, will leverage a novel precision cellular immunotherapy developed by her lab known as chimeric autoantibody receptor T-cells (CAART) to better understand how these living therapies may be used to treat certain types of autoimmune diseases such as pemphigus and myasthenia gravis.

Investigator Nikhil Joshi, Ph.D., associate professor at Yale University, will study how variations in T-cell receptors (TCRs) affect immune cell function, resilience, and adaptability in fighting infections and cancer. Joshi and his team hope to identify factors that enhance immune surveillance and improve immunotherapy strategies.

Investigator Ekaterina (Katya) Vinogradova, Ph.D., assistant professor at The Rockefeller University, will leverage state-of-the-art chemical proteomic platforms to address the challenges of selective targeting of immune proteins with small molecules. She aims to deepen our understanding of T-cells and develop advanced chemical probes for protein visualization or functional modulation. View all CZ Biohub NY Investigators.

CZ Biohub New York is the fourth research institute in the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network, a groundbreaking collaborative model for scientific research created and supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). CZI is focused on solving four grand challenges that will give scientists the tools to help cure, prevent, or manage all diseases in the coming decades. CZ Biohub NY will take on the challenge of engineering and harnessing the immune system for early detection, prevention, and treatment of disease. Together, CZI and the CZ Biohub Network partner to develop science and technologies that help with understanding how cells and tissues function and increase understanding of human health and disease.

About the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network is a group of nonprofit research institutes that bring together scientists, engineers, and physicians with the goal of pursuing grand scientific challenges on 10- to 15-year time horizons. The CZ Biohub Network focuses on understanding underlying mechanisms of disease and developing new technologies that will lead to actionable diagnostics and effective therapies. To learn more, visit www.czbiohub.org.

About the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education, to addressing the needs of our local communities. Our mission is to build a better future for everyone. For more information, please visit chanzuckerberg.com.