Ludwig Princeton welcomed immunologist Lydia Lynch to the Branch as a full member in January. A native of Ireland who earned her PhD in 2008 from University College Dublin, Lydia came to the Princeton Branch from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she was an associate professor of medicine. Her lab, which explores the interplay of systemic and cellular metabolic processes with the immune system, has made landmark contributions to models of how obesity and diet influence immune regulation and anti-tumor immunity, and how immune cells in turn shape systemic metabolism. Lydia was among the first to describe the mechanisms by which changes in systemic metabolism brought about by altered diet affect the metabolism of immune cells in humans and mice, and how obesity compromises immune surveillance and responses to cancer. Lydia also discovered about a dozen years ago a type of immune cell found in fat, the “adipose iNKT cell”, that has profound effects on metabolism. She has since detailed the mechanisms by which this unusual class of cells regulates the function of fat cells and body weight. Lydia has recently received major grants to develop a novel innate T cell-based immunotherapy for cancer. In addition to her membership of Ludwig Princeton, Lydia has been appointed full professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.
Back to April 2024 Ludwig Link