Ellebrecht Lab
Principal Investigator: Christoph Thomas Ellebrecht
Institution: University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: Inquire for rotation/fellowship opportunities
Research Focus
Title: Deciphering novel cell death mechanisms and metabolic reprogramming in response to microenvironmental stress. Understanding how cells respond to microenvironmental stress is essential for unraveling fundamental biological processes. While acute stressor perturbations in tissues are often transient, the cellular changes induced can persist long after the initial stressor has subsided, challenging our current knowledge of long- term impact of microenvironmental stress. My laboratory combines cell- and genome-engineering with transcriptional, epigenetic, and metabolic profiling to understand cellular fate decisions informed by the surrounding microenvironment. With these tools, we have revealed an unexpected phenomenon: Cells exposed to immune cell activation can undergo cell death without specific antigen recognition, cytokine signaling or apoptosis induction, suggesting the existence of a novel mechanism of cell death with far-reaching implications for various biological processes. Our preliminary experiments provide a crucial insight: the disruption of translation of mitochondrial respiratory chain genes confers resistance to this form of cell death in exposed cells. This ob…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R35GM159930-02: Deciphering novel cell death mechanisms and metabolic reprogramming in response to microenvironmental stress. (2026)
- 1R01AR086989-01: Elucidating the role of protein translation efficiency in T cell adaptation to human skin (2026)
- 5K08AR080266-05: Asymmetric cell division for fate commitment of human T cells (2026)
- 1R35GM159930-01: Deciphering novel cell death mechanisms and metabolic reprogramming in response to microenvironmental stress. (2025)
- 5K08AR080266-04: Asymmetric cell division for fate commitment of human T cells (2025)
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