Explore immunology with IMMCG
The Immunology Center of Georgia welcomes all campus faculty, researchers and staff to two kinds of conversations, organized by IMMCG scientists Kunzhe Dong, PhD, and Peipei Zhu, PhD.
- Research in Progress is a presentation and discussion about what’s new and what’s next in immunology research. These presentations take place each Tuesday in the Georgia Cancer Center's M. Bert Storey Research Building on the first-floor in the Knox Foundation Community Room, CN1209 (unless otherwise posted).
- Journal Club showcases recent groundbreaking immunology papers, presented by a member of the IMMCG team. These presentations take place each Friday in the Georgia Cancer Center's M. Bert Storey Research Building on the first-floor in room CN1203 (unless otherwise posted).
These events are exclusively for students, faculty and staff in the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University and Wellstar MCG Health.
Upcoming Events
Edem Bokoe
Graduate Resaerch Assistant Gascoigne Lab Immunology Center of Georgia
Research in Progress
Tuesday, March 31, at 12:00 p.m., CN 1209
Title: “Targeting NOX1 to Enhance T Cell Function and CAR-T Cell Efficacy”
Jing Wang, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow Zhu Lab Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Friday, April 3, at 11:00 a.m., TBA
Title: “Maternal Diet Alters Long-term Innate Immune Cell Memory in Fetal and Juvenile Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells in Nonhuman Primate Offspring”
Past Events
2026
Research in Progress: Kathy Li
- March 24, 2026
Kathy Li
MD/PhD Student, Molecular Oncology & Immunology
Liu Lab and Kaplan Lab
NIH-AU Graduate Partnership Program
Title: "Investigations into Myeloid-Mediated Trogocytosis of Tumor Cells"
Journal Club: Qingkang Lyu, PhD
- March 20, 2026
Qingkang Lyu, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ley Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Opposing Functions of Distinct Regulatory T Cell Subsets in Colorectal Cancer"
Research in Progress: Megh Mehta
- March 17, 2026
Megh Mehta
Graduate Research Assistant
Ley Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Using CITE-SEQ From PBMCS to Identify Whether Surface Protein-Gene Expression Correlations Help Characterize CVD"
Journal Club: Bowen Hou, PhD
- March 13, 2026
Bowen Hou, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Gascoigne Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Sensitive CAR T Cells Redefine Targetable CD70 Expression in Solid Tumors"
Research in Progress: Farjana Sharmen
- March 10, 2026
Farjana Sharmen
Graduate Research Assistant
Orecchioni Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Role of Olfr2 in Antigen presentation and T Cell Activation Promoting Atherosclerosis"
Research in Progress: Devadatta Gosavi
- March 3, 2026
Devadatta Gosavi
Graduate Research Assistant
Ley Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Co-ordinated Interplay of Kindlin3 and Talin1 during β2 Integrin Activation"
Research in Progress: Khalia Cummings
- February 24, 2026
Khalia Cummings
Graduate Research Assistant
Orecchioni Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Olfactory Receptor 2 Signaling Enhances Monocyte and Macrophage Chemotactic Migration to the Dysfunction Endothelium in Atherosclerotic Aorta"
Journal Club: Jiang Zhou, PhD
- February 20, 2026
Jiang Zhou, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Chiang Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Tumour-reactive Heterotypic CD8 T cell Clusters from Clinical Samples"
Research in Progress: Lily Liu
- February 17, 2026
Lily Liu
Graduate Research Assistant
Chaing Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor Drives Acinar-to-ductal Metaplasia in Pancreatic Cancer"
Journal Club: Gabriel Valentin-Guillama, PhD
- February 13, 2026
Gabriel Valentin-Guillama, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Hedrick Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "DNA-damaging Chemotherapy Reshapes Cardiac-resident Macrophage Composition and Function"
Journal Club: Abdul Musah Basit
- February 6, 2026
Abdul Musah Basit
Graduate Research Assistant
Gascoigne Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Multiplex Engineering using MicroRNA-Mediated Gene Silencing in CAR T Cells"
Journal Club: Austin Lowery
- January 30, 2026
Austin Lowery
Graduate Research Assistant
Hedrick Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Pan-Cancer Single-cell Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals CD83 as a Hallmark of Tumor-Associated Neutrophils with Senescent and Pro-tumor Properties"
Research in Progress: Xuemei "Fiona" Xie, MD, PhD
- January 27, 2026
Xuemei "Fiona" Xie, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ley Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "CITE-seq Reveals Enrichment of Cytotoxic CD4⁺ T Cells in Atherosclerotic Plaques"
Journal Club: Khalia Cummings
- January 23, 2026
Khalia Cummings
Graduate Research Assistant
Orecchioni Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: TBA
Journal Club: Aderonke Fakayode
- January 16, 2026
Aderonke Fakayode
Graduate Research Assistant
Hedrick Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: TBA
Research in Progress: Bowen Hou, PhD
- January 13, 2026
Bowen Hou, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Gascoigne Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "3-Dimensional Characterization of Thymic Lymphatics as a Novel Egress Route for Mature Thymocytes"
2025
Research in Progress: David Mysona, MD
- February 28, 2025
David Mysona, MD
Gynecologic Oncology Fellow and
Faculty Instructor, Obstetrics
and Gynecology
Faculty Instructor, Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine
Georgia Cancer Center
Title: "T Cells and Endometrial Cancer: An Uncoventional Cell Meets an Unconventional Immunologist"
Journal Club: Megh Mehta
- February 28, 2025
Megh Mehta
Graduate Student
Ley Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "IFNy-Induction of TH1-Like Regulatory T Cells Controls Antiviral Responses"
Research in Progress: Nandeeni Suryawanshi
- February 20, 2025
Nandeeni Suryawanshi
Research Associate
Chiang Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Towards Antigens and Biomarkers Identification in Sarcoidosis: A Comprehensive Systems Immunology Framework"
Journal Club: Qingkang Lyu, PhD
- February 21, 2025
Qingkang Lyu, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ley Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "IL-23 Stabilizes an Effector Treg Cell Program in the Tumor Microenvironment"
Journal Club: Apeksha Anand, PhD
- February 14, 2025
Apeksha Anand, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Shi Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Integrative Genotyping of Cancer and Immune Phenotypes by Long-Read Sequencing"
Research in Progress: Adil Ijaz, PhD
- February 13, 2025
Adil Ijaz, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Orecchioni Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Olfr2 Regulates oxLDL Signaling and Processing, Driving a Proinflammatory Foamy Macrophage Phenotype"
Journal Club: Suchen Yadav, PhD
- February 7, 2025
Suchen Yadav, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Homeostatic, Non-Canonical Role of Macrophage Elastase in Vascular Integrity"
Research in Progress: Layne Benson
- February 6, 2025
Layne Benson
Graduate Research Assistant
Hedrick and Orecchioni Labs
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: “OLFR2-Expressing Myeloid Cells Modulate T Cell Activation and Response in the Tumor Microenvironment"
Journal Club: Gabriel Valentin-Guillama, PhD
- January 31, 2025
Gabriel Valentin-Guillama, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Hedrick Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: “Cancer Cells Impair Monocyte-Mediated T Cell Stimulation to Evade Immunity"
Journal Club: Lily Liu
- January 24, 2025
Lily Liu
Graduate Research Assistant
Chiang Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Systematic Comparison of Sequencing Based Spatial Transcriptomic Methods"
Research in Progress: Jiang Zhou, PhD
- January 23, 2025
Jiang Zhou, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Chiang Lab
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Discovery of Novel Combinatory Biomarkers for Athersclerosis"
Research in Progress: Anusha Bellapu, PhD
- January 16, 2025
Anusha Bellapu, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Immunology Center of Georgia
Title: "Treg to exTreg Conversion"
2024
Journal Club: Yan Wang, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Friday, November 22
Title: "Distinct Bidirectional Regulation of LFA1 and α4β7 by Rap1 and Integrin Adaptors in T cells Under Shear Flow”
Research in Progress: Austin Lowery
- 2nd year PhD
- Student
- Biochemistry and Cancer Biology Graduate Program
Research in Progress
Thursday, November 21
Title: “Spatial Analysis of NETotic Activity in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC)”
Journal Club: Ruibo Cai, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Friday, November 15
Title: "Long noncoding RNA LIRIL2R Modulates FOXP3 Levels and Suppressive Function of Human CD4+ Regulatory T Cells by Regulating IL2RA”
Journal Club: Aderonke Fakayode
- MOI,
- PhD Student
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, November 14
Title: “GENE EXPRESSION PROFILING IN IMMUNE CELLS OF PATIENTS WITH CORONARY ARTERY DISEASES”
Austin Lowery
- 2nd year PhD
- Student
- Biochemistry and Cancer Biology Graduate Program
September 27, 2024
Friday, September 27
Title: “CXCR6 ORCHESTRATES BRAIN CD8+ T CELL RESIDENCY AND LIMITS MOUSE ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE PATHOLOGY”
William B. Kiosses, PhD
- Program Projects Core Microscopy
- Director and Senior Staff Scientist,
- La Jolla Institute for Immunology
September 24, 2024
Tuesday, September 24
Title: “IMAGING THE SACRIFICIAL NEUTROPHIL IMMUNE RESPONSE”
Ruibo Cai, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
September 19, 2024
Thursday, September 19
Title: “Crosstalk between Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells and Immune Cells in Atherosclerosis”
Gabriel Valentin-Guillama, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
September 12, 2024
Thursday, September 12
Title: "Exploring the Role of CXCR3+ Monocytes in Enhancing Anti-Tumor Immunity in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Models”
Mohammad Oliaeimotlagh, MD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
September 6, 2024
Friday, September 6
Title: “TARGETING PRO-INFLAMMATORY T CELLS AS A NOVEL THERAPEUTIC APPROACH TO POTENTIALLY RESOLVE ATHEROSCLEROSIS IN HUMANS”
Khalia Cummings
- Biomedical Sciences
- PhD Student,
- VBC, IMMCG, MCG, AU
September 5, 2024
Thursday, September 5
Title: "The Role of Olfactory Receptor 2 in the Initiation and Progression of Atherosclerosis”
Journal Club: Gabriel Valentin-Guillama, PhD
- PhD Candidate
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Friday, August 30
Title: "ZBTB46 COORDINATES ANGIOGENESIS AND IMMUNITY TO CONTROL TUMOR OUTCOME”
Journal Club: Ogacheko Okoko
- PhD Candidate
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Friday, August 23
Title: "Persistent STAT5 activation reprograms the epigenetic landscape in CD4+ T cells to drive polyfunctionality and antitumor immunity”
Journal Club: Yan Wang, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, June 13
Title: “TALIN AND KINDLIN COOPERATE TO CONTROL THE DENSITY OF INTEGRIN CLUSTERS”
Rudolf Lucas, PhD
- VBC,
- Department, Pharmacology & Toxicology,
- AU
Research Seminar
Tuesday, June 11
Title: "A NOVEL PEPTIDE-BASED THERAPEUTICSTRATEGY TOWARDS ARDS"
Journal Club: Smriti Parashar, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, May 30
Title: “Mitochondrial Complex III is Essential for Suppressive Function of Regulatory T Cells”
Journal Club: Qingkang Lyu, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, May 16
Title: "Regulatory T Cells Restrain Interleukin-2- and Blimp-1-Dependent Acquisition of Cytotoxic Function by
CD4+ T Cells"
Research in Progress: Kunzhe Dong, PhD
- Assistant Professor
- Dong Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
- Department of Pharmacology and
- Toxicology, Medical Collge of Georgia
Research in Progress
Thursday, May 9
Title: "Long Non-Coding RNAs and Cellular Crosstalk in Vascular Diseases"
Journal Club: Ogacheko Okoko
- PhD Candidate
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, April 30, 12:00 p.m.
Title: "IL7 Increases Targeted Lipid Nanoparticle-Mediated MRNA Expression in T Cells In Vitro and In Vivo by Enhancing T Cell Protein Translation"
Research in Progress: Phillip Coffey
- Weintraub Lab, Vascular Biology Center
Research in Progress
Thursday, March 21, 12:00 p.m.
Title: "Cooperative Role of Circulating Myeloperoxidase and Nox4 in the Pathogenesis of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms"
Journal Club: Mohammad Oliaeimotlagh
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, February 29, 12:00 p.m.
Title: "Dissecting Cell Identity Via Network Inference and in Silico Gene Perturbation”
Research in Progress: Sunil Kumar
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Research in Progress
Thursday, March 7, 12:00 p.m.
Title: "Identification of candidate biomarkers for Coronary Artery Disease by Spectral Flow-cytometry"
Journal Club: Mohammad Oliaeimotlagh, MD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, February 29
Title: “Dissecting Cell Identify Via Network Inference and in Silico Gene Perturbation"
Journal Club: Layne Benson
- Graduate Student
- Hedrick Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, February 29
Title: "SLAN+ Monocytes Kill Cancer Cells Coated in Therapeutic Antibody by Trogoptosis"
Research in Progress: Amir Khan
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Research in Progress
Thursday, February 22
Title: "Pro-Inflammatory Gene Expression Changes with Age in Men and Women With and Without Coronary Artery Disease”
Journal Club: Megh Mehta
- Graduate Student
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, February 15
Title: "Talin and kindlin Use Integrin Tail Allostery and Direct Binding to Activate Integrins"
Journal Club: Natalia Jaeger, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Hedrick Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, February 1
Title: "Macrophage and neutrophil heterogeneity at single-cell spatial resolution in human inflammatory bowel disease"
Research in Progress: Adil Rasheed, PhD
- Assistant Professor
- Rasheed Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Research in Progress
Thursday, January 18
Title: "Mixed Lineage Kinase Domain-Like Protein: An Immunometabolic Nexus of Cardiovascular Disease"
Journal Club: Peter Biggs, PhD
- Graduate Research
- Assistant
Journal Club
Thursday, January 18
Title: "NAD+ Regulates Nucleotide Metabolism and Genomic DNA Replication"
Research in Progress: Kunal Kumar, PhD
- Post Doctoral Fellow
- Singh Lab, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Research in Progress
Thursday, January 11
Title: "UFL1 Regulates T Cells Exhaustion"
2023
Journal Club: Amir Khan, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Georgia Cancer Center
Journal Club
Thursday, December 7
Title: “RIMODAL Single-Cell Profiling Reveals a Novel Pediatric CD8αα+ T Cell Subset and Broad Age-Related Molecular Reprogramming Across the T Cell Comparement"
Journal Club: Mohammad Yeashin Gazi, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Georgia Cancer Center
Journal Club
Thursday, November 16
Title: “Vaccine-boosted Car T Crosstalk With Host Immunity To Reject Tumors With Antigen Heterogeneity”
Journal Club: Francis Anazodo
- Graduate Student
- Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Journal Club
Thursday, November 2
Title: “Regulation of the Terminal Maturation Of iNKT Cells By Mediator Complex Subunit 23”
Journal Club: Kunal Kumar, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Singh Lab, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Journal Club
Thursday, October 19
Title: “MYB Orchestrates T Cell Exhaustion And Response to Checkpoint Inhibition”
Journal Club: Ogacheko Okoko
- PhD Candidate
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, October 5
Title: “Epitope Base Editing CD45 in Hematopoietic Cells enables Universal Blood Cancer Immune Therapy”
Journal Club: Sunil Kumar, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, September 7
Title: “TCF-1 regulates HIV-Specific CD8+ T cell Expansion Capacity”
Journal Club: Layne Benson
- Graduate Student
- Hedrick Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, August 24
Title: "Single-cell RNA-sequencing identifies anti-cancer immune phenotypes in the early lung metastatic niche during breast cancer”
Journal Club: Yan Wang, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, April 13
Title: "Flow cytometry based-FRET: basics, novel developments and future perspectives”
Journal Club: Qingkang Lyu, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, March 30
Title: "Talin variant P229S compromises integrin activation and associates with multifaceted clinical symptoms”
Journal Club: Kunal Kumar, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Singh Lab, Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Journal Club
Thursday, March 9
Title: "Deletion of SNX9 alleviates CD8 T cell exhaustion for effective cellular cancer immunotherapy”
Journal Club: Sunil Kumar, PhD
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Ley Lab, Immunology Center of Georgia
Journal Club
Thursday, February 23
Title: "A critical role for TCF-1 in T-lineage specification and differentiation”