Lucas Lab
Principal Investigator: Carrie L. Lucas
Institution: Yale University (New Haven, CT)
Primary Subfield: Immunology
Recruitment Status: ✅ Accepting PhD Students
Research Focus
PROJECT 3 - PROJECT SUMMARY This project is designed to illuminate pediatric immunology through genetic analyses in children suffering from known or suspected inborn errors of immunity (IEIs). Remarkable advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) of genomic DNA have facilitated the identification of causative genes for over 450 distinct IEI, and accompanying studies of the functional consequences of the underlying genetic variants have led to unprecedented insights into immune function in health and disease including novel precision therapies. We will build from (a) cohorts of three defined IEIs caused by mutations in the genes encoding phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kä), STAT1, or ELF4 and (b) our extensive experience and infrastructure in the Pediatric Genomics Discovery Program (PGDP) at Yale to discover novel gene defects in patients with suspected but unsolved IEIs. This will enable us to test our central hypothesis that rare, deleterious variants in genetic determinants of the core pathways of (i) PI3K/mTOR or (ii) interferon responses derail healthy immune homeostasis and development during childhood by perturbing critical signals that govern immune cell states. These…
Active NIH Awards
- 5P01AI179570-02: Illuminating pediatric immunology through genetics (2026)
- 5P01AI179570-02: Administrative Core (2026)
- 5R01AI185063-02: Orchestration of the antibody response by PI3K-gamma (2026)
- 1R01AI185063-01A1: Orchestration of the antibody response by PI3K-gamma (2025)
- 1P01AI179570-01A1: Illuminating pediatric immunology through genetics (2025)
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