News

July 2024

Deepta takes over as the inaugural executive director of the Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies! Stay tuned for updates and job postings as we build!

January 2024

Hannah's work on engineering pluripotent stem cells to evade transplant rejection is now published at Stem Cell Reports! Congratulations, Hannah!

July 2023

And as part of the grand finale, Hannah's preprint is now out on engineering pluripotent stem cells to evade transplant rejection! Avoiding immunological rejection is a key part of making pluripotent stem cell-based therapies a practical reality.

May 2023

At long last, Hannah's paper is out at Journal of Experimental Medicine! Hannah showed that metabolic pathways switch and distinguish steady-state from emergency myelopoiesis. This took years and years of hard work, spanning a move and a pandemic!

March 2023

Jeremy Meyers joins the lab as a PhD student! Welcome, Jeremy.

January 2023

Marta moves on to join Andrew Flyak's lab as a postdoctoral fellow. We'll miss you, Marta!

August 2022

Zoe Lyski (postdoctoral fellow) and Elizabeth Sargent (Master's student) join the lab!

Lucas' paper is published in PLoS One!

June 2022

Check out Deepta's Op-Ed in The New York Times on COVID-19 vaccines and immunity.

March 2022

Colin Fields joins the lab as an MSTP student! Welcome, Colin!

December 2021

Lucas' work is now on BioRxiv! Do *not* use the fluorescent glucose analog 2NBDG as an indicator of bona fide glucose uptake--it will lead you astray!

September 2021

Check out the culmination of Hannah's thesis work, now at BioRxiv! She defines the metabolic pathways that promote myeloid homeostasis using a gazillion chimeras and in vivo models. Huge amount of work!

August 2021

Hannah Pizzato defends her thesis for the WashU DBBS program! Congrats, Dr. Pizzato!!!

Ran Wei leaves to begin his MPH in Biostatistics here at the UofA! Congrats, Ran (and we are glad you are still here in case so we can ask questions)!

July 2021

Hannah Newlin leaves for greener pastures and will start grad school at the University of Utah! Congrats, Hannah!

Deepta is promoted to Full Professor! This is an award that was earned by the lab and all the people who worked so hard here at UofA!

May 2021

Chloe Mikolajczyk joins the lab as the latest undergraduate UBRP student! Welcome, Chloe!

March 2021

Check out the writeup of Danielle and her work in the lab! Well-deserved spotlight, Danielle and Tyler!

And some more Deepta interviews re: the pandemic:

Arizona Daily Star

KOLD

Arizona Daily Star

February 2021

Tyler's article in Annual Review of Immunology is out! We review transcriptional and metabolic control of plasma cells and memory B lymphocytes. Please check it out to get our take on where the field is at and where we think it is going.

And the interviews continue:

FiveThirtyEight podcast

NBC News

Arizona Daily Star

South China Morning Post

Arizona Illustrated

KGUN

January 2021

And still more interviews:

Bloomberg

NBC News

The Wall Street Journal

KVOA

Deepta's campus webinar on vaccines

December 2020

And the interviews continue, including one for FiveThirtyEight (!):

FiveThirtyEight

Buzzfeed News

The New York Times

Buzzfeed News

MedPage Today

The Atlantic

KVOA

Arizona Capitol Times

November 2020

Some more of Deepta's interviews on the virus, the pandemic, immunity, and vaccines:

The New York Times

The New York Times

Arirang TV

October 2020

Tyler's and Rachel's collaborative work is accepted by Immunity! Huge effort by many around UA to get this done. Protective SARS-CoV-2 antibodies persist for at least 5-7 months.

...And the news coverage continues--below is just a snippet:

Medium

Deepta's interview with CBS/KNX

The New York Times

CNN

NPR

Deutsche Welle

September 2020

Rachel's paper on ZBTB38 is accepted by PLoS One! You win some, you lose some in science. We couldn't find anything wrong with these knockout mice, but they are now available at MMRRC for others to try!

Kameron Peyton joins the lab as a research technician! Welcome, Kameron!

August 2020

Rachel's paper is accepted by Immunity! Her study examines antibody responses to flaviviruses. Huge amount of work!

And, it is finally time (sniff). Rachel leaves the lab to take a great position at Vir Biotechnology. Not sure how the lab will manage without her, but we are so proud!!

Our slightly edgy and Bayesian commentary is accepted by The Journal of Immunology! Joint piece with Nicole Baumgarth, Janko Nikolich-Zugich, and Eun-Hyung Lee. Let's not throw away everything we have learned over decades of viral immunology!

The FDA grants emergency use authorization to the SARS-CoV-2 antibody test that the lab helped develop! Congrats, team!

Also, the insanity continues with news coverage. Check out Deepta's interview on NPR Science Fridays:

NPR Science Fridays

And more on Tyler's and Rachel's SARS-CoV-2 antibody work in collaboration with the Nikolich-Zugich lab: 

The New York Times

Katye leaves the lab to take a position at Ventana Medical Systems. Stop stealing our people, Ventana! But seriously, congrats to Katye.

July 2020

Hannah Newlin joins the lab as a research technician! Welcome, Hannah!

Bao Thai decides to join the lab as a MD-PhD student! Welcome Bao! He will begin in February, focusing on our stem cell projects.

And more news coverage--what a strange time to be immunologists! More links to coverage below:

The New York Times

May 2020

Danielle Philo joins the lab as the group's first undergraduate student from UA! Welcome Danielle, and congrats on being admitted to UBRP! Danielle will be working with Tyler on clonal analysis of SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses.

Wow, what an insane few months! Lots of press for the Bhattacharya Lab and our efforts to develop a SARS-CoV-2 antibody test for the University and State. Here are a few links if you want to hear more:

Arizona Public Media

Arizona Republic

KOLD

KGUN

Midland University

Seti Institute

Tucson.com

UA Health Sciences

USA Today

Diana leaves the lab to take a position at Ventana. Congratulations, Diana!

December 2019

Rachel successfully defends her thesis back at WashU!!! Congratulations, Rachel! Well-earned!

November 2019

The lab's Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation grant in collaboration with the NYSCF labs is renewed! This funding will allow us to continue our work to reverse Type 1 diabetes using grafts from minimally immunogenic pluripotent stem cells.

October 2019

Arijita's paper is at long last accepted by Scientific Reports! In this study, we show that ZBTB32 restricts antibody responses to MCMV infections, but not to intestinal bacteria or influenza. Many thanks to the Hsieh, Yokoyama, Boon, and Kiela labs, and to Diana and Tyler for helping to close this out!

July 2019

Ryan Wei joins the lab as a research technician; Katye Totten joins as a research specialist; Kelvin Pond joins as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome everyone!!

Ian departs to begin graduate school at our old home of Washington University in St. Louis! We will miss you, Ian! Thanks for all the hard work and keeping the lab running smoothly!

May 2019

Deepta is interviewed by Arizona Public Media/NPR! Check out the podcast to hear a quick blurb on the lab's work.

December 2018

Review-o-rama concludes--Lucas' review on plasma cell metabolism is accepted! Soon to appear in Immunological Reviews.

November 2018

The lab is awarded a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation! The award supports our work on developing immunity for infectious disease.

October 2018

In collaboration with Takeshi Egawa, the lab publishes a review on B cell metabolism in Current Opinion in Immunology. Check it out for a primer on the background and lab's current interests.

Rachel's review on memory B cell responses to infections is accepted!

July 2018

Wing's paper is accepted by Cell Reports!! The manuscript reports the surprising finding that long- and short-lived plasma cells have almost no consistent transcriptional differences that distinguish them. Instead, metabolic properties are the major determinants of lifespan. Many thanks to Arijita, Lucas, Rachel, and members of the Meares and Patti labs at WVU and WashU for their help! Links to follow soon.

March 2018

Tyler Ripperger joins as the lab's first UA PhD student! Welcome, Tyler!

December 2017

The Bhattacharya Lab receives three grants from the NIH! The first R01 grant is a renewal of the lab's work on transcription factors that promote durable immunity, the second grant is a new R01 that focuses on metabolic pathways that control plasma cell antibody secretion and lifespan, and the final R21 grant funds our work on differentiating pluripotent stem cells into pathogen-specific plasma cells. 

September 2017

Diana Gerardo joins the lab as a research technician! Diana will be working on developing new anti-microbial antibodies.

Wing's and Deepta's review on plasma cells is published in Trends in Immunology!

August 2017

Wing defends her thesis on metabolic pathways that control plasma cells!! Hooray! Wing will be moving back to her native California to begin a joint postdoc program at Amgen and Stanford University in Eugene Butcher's lab.

Kelly begins medical school at NYU! Congrats, Kelly!

July 2017

The Bhattacharya Lab moves to the University of Arizona! Many thanks to Rachel, Hannah, and Lucas for braving the move. Special thanks to Krista for helping to set up the new lab before returning to St. Louis.

Ian McCabe joins the lab as a research technician! Ian did his undergrad at UA, and is an old hand at showing us the ropes on campus as well as new restaurants. Ian will be working on differentiation of pluripotent stem cells into effector immune lineages.

Arijita joins Milan Chheda's lab at Washington University in St. Louis. We wish you could have come with us, but we understand and wish you (and Anindya and Lily) the best in your new lab!

March 2017

Lucas D'Souza joins the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Welcome, Lucas!

Big news: The Bhattacharya Lab will be moving to the University of Arizona this summer to join the Department of Immunobiology! We will very much miss our friends and colleagues at WashU, but we are excited for the opportunity to join such a young and talented department. Stay tuned for more details...

February 2017

Deepta is promoted to Associate Professor with tenure!! This is a tribute to all the members of the lab, past and present, whose hard work made this happen.

December 2016

The lab receives a grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation! This will fund collaborative work with the New York Stem Cell Foundation Labs to generate pluripotent stem cell-derived pancreatic beta cells that cannot be rejected.

September 2016

The lab receives a supplemental award from the NIH! This will fund collaborative work with Gary Patti's group to look at metabolic pathways that regulate antibody-mediated immunity.

July 2016

Derrick leaves to begin his graduate career at University of Pittsburgh. Good luck, Derrick!

June 2016

Arijita's paper is accepted by the Journal of Immunology!! Her paper describes Zbtb32 as a novel negative regulator of the duration of memory B cell recall responses.

April 2016

Wing's, Amy's, and Krista's paper is accepted by Immunity!! The manuscript details a metabolic pathway that maintains durable antibody-mediated immunity.

Kelly receives a BioSURF fellowship for the summer!

July 2015

Amy's and Derrick's paper on GPR18 and intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes is accepted by PLOS One! The work demonstrates that an orphan G protein-coupled receptor is important for restoring small intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes after bone marrow transplantation.

Hannah Pizzato and Wing Lam join the lab as Ph.D. students!

Kelly Hu joins the lab as an undergraduate student!

June 2015

Yinan moves to New York to begin a postdoctoral position.  Yinan will be working with Barry Sleckman, a former colleague from WashU and an expert on DNA repair. Congratulations and good luck, Yinan!! 

April 2015

Yinan defends his thesis!!!  Hooray, Yinan!

Rachel receives a predoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation!  This is a highly prestigious award, where only ~14% of applicants are selected for funding.

October 2014

Amy's paper is accepted by Experimental Hematology!  Amy's paper describes the role of a metalloprotease, ADAM17, in regulating cytokine receptor expression on hematopoietic progenitors.

July 2014

Amy moves to Boston to take an Instructor position at Harvard in Derrick Rossi's lab.  The Rossi lab is a leader in the hematopoietic stem cell biology field, addressing questions of self-renewal and re-programming.  Many thanks, Amy, for all the years of hard work, and good luck to the whole family!

June 2014

Derrick Callahan joins the lab as a research technician.  Welcome Derrick!

Rachel Wong joins the lab as a PhD student.  Welcome, Rachel!

Amy's K01 is selected for funding, and she is offered a position in the lab of Derrick Rossi at Harvard!!  Hooray, Amy! 

May 2014

Kranti will attend Johns Hopkins for medical school!  Congratulations Kranti--you will be a great physician!

March 2014

Yinan's paper is accepted by the Journal of Experimental Medicine!  Congratulations, Yinan!!  Yinan's paper shows that the transcription factor ZBTB20 regulates antibody responses in an adjuvant-specific manner.

March 2013

The lab is awarded a grant from the American Cancer Society!  The grant funds efforts to understand both plasma cell and multiple myeloma survival pathways.

January 2013

Whitney joins the lab of Mark Anderson at UCSF.  The Anderson lab is a leader in cellular and molecular pathways that lead to autoimmunity.  Congratulations, Whitney!  We will miss you!

November 2012

Arijita Jash joins the lab as a postdoctoral fellow.  Welcome, Ari!

October 2012

Deepta is named a New York Stem Cell Foundation-Robertson Investigator (and gets to meet John McEnroe and Patty Smyth)!  This grant funds our stem cell engineering work to generate targeted immune cells from embryonic stem cells.

August 2012

The lab is awarded an R01 grant from the NIH!!  This foundational grant funds work to understand the transcriptional networks which regulate durable antibody-mediated immunity.

July 2012

Marilyn accepts a lab director position at Nestle-Purina.  Congratulations Marilyn--we will miss you!

Krista Kennerly joins the lab as a research Technician.  Welcome, Krista!

May 2012

Whitney is awarded a W.M. Keck Fellowship!  Congratulations, Whitney!!

Kranti Peddada joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher.  Welcome, Kranti!

March 2012

The lab is awarded a pilot grant from the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences!  The grant funds work to identify molecular pathways which regulate antibody-mediated immunity.

February 2012

Whitney's paper is accepted by PNAS!  Congratulations, Whitney!!  Whitney's paper identifies a spontaneous secondary mutation in the background of IRF5-/- mice, which is actually responsible for many of the reported phenotypes.

December 2011

Amy's paper is accepted by Blood!  Congratulations, Amy!!  Amy's paper demonstrates that common transcriptional modules guide distinct hematopoietic progenitors into the same ultimate fate.

October 2011

Whitney's paper is accepted by the Journal of Experimental Medicine!  Congratulations, Whitney!!  Whitney's paper demonstrates that  long-lived plasma cells are effective at neutralizing pathogens which have been encountered earlier in life, whereas memory B cells deal with mutants of earlier encountered pathogens.

The lab is awarded a pilot grant from the Rheumatic Diseases Core Center!  The grant funds work to identify pathways which allow autoreactive B cells to escape the germinal center reaction.

April 2011

Whitney Purtha defends her PhD thesis and stays as a postdoctoral fellow.  Congratulations, Whitney!

February 2011

The lab is awarded a development grant from the Midwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research!  The grant funds work to identify memory B cells which counter mutant versions of West Nile and Dengue viruses.

December 2010

The lab is awarded a grant from the Children's Discovery Institute!  The grant funds work to study the role of memory B cells in countering influenza strains which vary from year-to-year.

September 2010

Yinan is awarded a fellowship from the Siteman Cancer Center!  Congratulations, Yinan!!

April 2010

Amy Becker joins the lab as a postdoctoral fellow.  Welcome Amy!

June 2009

Yinan Wang joins the lab as a PhD student.  Welcome Yinan!

September 2008

The Bhattacharya Lab opens for business!

Marilyn Renner joins the lab as a research technician.  Welcome, Marilyn!