Tanya Freedman, PhD

The Freedman lab studies mechanisms by which myeloid cells and lymphocytes integrate positive- and negative-regulatory signals to achieve tissue-specific functions and drive pathologies from autoimmune disease (e.g., lupus/SLE, inflammatory arthritis/RA/JIA) to breast cancer. Immune-cell responses are triggered by complex networks of signaling pathways that intersect and feed back for higher-order regulation. The effectiveness of this regulatory control is the key difference between an appropriate antimicrobial response and chronic inflammation or immunosuppression. The lab investigates how cells discriminate between different types of extracellular molecules, how cells achieve tissue-specific functions, and how immune responses become dysregulated in disease. Mechanisms regulated by tyrosine kinases (e.g., Src homologs LynA and LynB) and phosphatases (e.g., PTPN22, SHP-1) in myeloid cells such as macrophages, dendritic cells, and mast cells, are areas of particular interest to the lab.