Eugene Butcher

We are interested in fundamental aspects of cell-cell recognition, migration and development with the mammalian immune and vascular systems as  models. We use molecular, genetic and single cell transcriptomic and mass cytometric approaches to study  the development and trafficking of  lymphocytes, NK cells and dendritic cells and their role in immune function in health and diseases. 
 
The vascular endothelium controls immune cell recruitment from the blood,  and thus determines the nature and magnitude of immune and inflammatory responses.     In a major new effort, we are applying single cell approaches (scRNAseq and mass cytometry), and novel computational approaches to probe endothelial cell specialization and responses in models of immune and tumor angiogenesis and inflammation.  
 
Although our focus is on fundamental problems in biology, the work is intrinsically translational and the laboratory is interested in applying its  discoveries to models of infection and immune pathology: examples include genetic studies of GPCR's and assessment of novel therapeutics in models of inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, cancer, aging and infection.
 
We are actively recruiting fellows with experience in biocomputation and coding who can take advantage of the datasets we are generating;   or experience in vascular biology, immunology,  imaging and cytometry.