Jinfang Zhu
Chief
Molecular and Cellular Immunoregulation Section
Laboratory of Immunology
United States of America
Biography
Dr. Zhu received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from the department of biology, NanKai University, Tianjin, China, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry (now known as Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology), Chinese Academy of Sciences. He joined the Laboratory of Immunology (LI) first as a visiting fellow and then as a staff scientist studying CD4 T-cell differentiation. He was appointed as an Earl Stadtman investigator in the LI in 2011 and received tenure in 2017. He is interested in investigating heterogeneity and plasticity of immune cells and their functions during normal and pathological immune responses at cellular and molecular levels. His focus is on induction and functions of transcription factor complexes during development, lineage commitment, and maintenance of immune cells, particularly CD4 T helper (Th) cells and innate lymphoid cells (ILCs).
Research Interest
Diversity and plasticity of T helper (Th) subsets, Development and functions of innate lymphoid cell (ILC) subsets, Transcriptional regulation of lineage-specific genes
Publications
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Expression and regulation of intergenic long noncoding RNAs during T cell development and differentiation
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Yagi R, Zhong C, Northrup DL, Yu F, Bouladoux N, Spencer S, Hu G, Barron L, Sharma S, Nakayama T, Belkaid Y. The transcription factor GATA3 is critical for the development of all IL-7Rα-expressing innate lymphoid cells. Immunity. 2014 Mar 20;40(3):378-88.
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Yu F, Sharma S, Edwards J, Feigenbaum L, Zhu J. Dynamic expression of transcription factors T-bet and GATA-3 by regulatory T cells maintains immunotolerance. Nature immunology. 2015 Feb 1;16(2):197-206.
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Zhong C, Cui K, Wilhelm C, Hu G, Mao K, Belkaid Y, Zhao K, Zhu J. Group 3 innate lymphoid cells continuously require the transcription factor GATA3 after commitment. Nature immunology. 2016 Feb;17(2):169.
