Assistant Professor Low Jun Siong

Research Interest

T and B cells are components of the immune system that are essential in fighting against infection-causing “foreign” pathogens, but are also involved in disease settings like cancer and autoimmunity where they can attack “self”. Our research uses high-throughput and comprehensive cell- and molecular-based approaches to understand the biology of T and B cells at the interplay of infection and cancer. In collaboration with our clinical partners, our goal is to characterize T and B cells in different cohorts of patients, to probe their antigen specificities and receptor repertoires and to evaluate their functions in the tissue microenvironment. In addition, we are interested in understanding how dysfunctional T and B cells can be reinvigorated and how to manipulate and engineer these cells to become more functionally effective. Our long term goal is to harness immune-based strategies to help alleviate disease outcomes.

Recent Publications

1. Low JS*, Jerak J*, Tortorici MA*, McCallum M, Pinto D, Cassotta A, Foglierini M, Mele F, Abdelnabi R, Weynand B, Noack J, Montiel-Ruiz M, Bianchi S, Benigni F, Sprugasci N, Joshi A, Bowen JE, Walls, AC, Jarrossay D, Morone D, Paparoditis P, Garzoni C, Ferrari P, Ceschi A, Neyts J, Purcell LA, Snell G, Corti D, Lanzavecchia A, Veesler D and Sallusto F. ACE2 engagement exposes the SARS-CoV-2 fusion peptide to broadly neutralizing antibodies. Science, 377 (2022). PMID: 35857703
2. Low JS*, Vaqueirinho D*, Mele F*, Foglierini M, Perotti M, Jarrossay D, Jovic S, Terrot T, Pellanda AF, Biggiogero M, Garzoni C, Ferrari P, Ceschi A, Lanzavecchia A, Cassotta A, Sallusto F. Clonal dissection of immunodominance and cross-reactivity of the CD4+ T cell response to SARS-CoV-2. Science, 372 (2021). PMID: 34006597
3. Low JS, Farsakoglu Y, Amezcua Vesely MC, Sefik E, Kelly JB, Harman CCD, Jackson R, Shyer JA, Jiang X, Cauley LS, Flavell RA, Kaech SM. Tissue-resident memory T cell reactivation by diverse antigen-presenting cells imparts distinct functional responses. Journal of Experimental Medicine, 217 (2020). Cover story. PMID: 32525985
4. Pinto D*, Sauer MM*, Czudnochowski N*, Low JS*, Tortorici MA, Housley MP, Noack J, Walls AC, Bowen JE, Guarino B, Rosen LE, Iulio J, Jerak J, Kaiser H, Islam S, Jaconi S, Sprugasci N, Culap K, Abdelnabi R, Foo C, Coelmont L, Bartha I, Bianchi S, Silacci-Fregni C, Bassi J, Marzi R, Vetti E, Cassotta A, Ceschi A, Ferrari P, Cippà PE, Giannini O, Ceruti S, Garzoni C, Riva A, Benigni F, Cameroni E, Piccoli L, Pizzuto MS, Smithey M, Hong D, Telenti A, Lempp FA, Neyts J, Havenar-Daughton C, Lanzavecchia A, Sallusto F, Snell G, Virgin HW, Beltramello M, Corti D, Veesler D. Broad betacoronavirus neutralization by a stem helix–specific human antibody. Science, 373 (2021). PMID: 34344823
5. Marcinkevics R, Silva PN, Hankele AK, Dörnte C, Kadelka S, Csik K, Godbersen S, Goga A, Hasenöhrl L, Hirschi P, Kabakci H, LaPierre MP, Mayrhofer J, Title AC, Shu X, Baiioud N, Bernal S, Dassisti L, Saenz-de-Juano MD, Schmidhauser M, Silvestrelli G, Ulbrich SZ, Ulbrich TJ, Wyss T, Stekhoven DJ, Al-Quaddoomi FS, Yu S, Binder M, Schultheiß C, Zindel C, Kolling C, Goldhahn J, Seighalani BK, Zjablovskaja P, Hardung F, Schuster M, Richter A, Huang YJ, Lauer G, Baurmann H, Low JS, Vaqueirinho D, Jovic S, Piccoli L, Ciesek S, Vogt JE, Sallusto F, Stoffel M, Ulbrich SE. Machine learning analysis of humoral and cellular responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection in young adults. Frontiers in Immunology, 14 (2023). PMID: 37313411
6. Giannou AD, Kempski J, Shiri AM, Lücke J, Zhang T, Zhao L, Zazara DE, Cortesi F, Riecken K, Vesely MCA, Low JS, Xu H, Kaffe E, Garcia-Perez L, Agalioti T, Yamada Y, Jungraithmayr W, Zigmond E, Karstens KF, Steglich B, Wagner J, Konczalla L, Carambia A, Schulze K, Felden J, May P, Briukhovetska D, Bedke T, Brockmann L, Starzonek S, Lange T, Koch C, Riethdorf S, Pelczar P, Böttcher M, Sabihi M, Huber FJ, Reeh M, Grass JK, Wahib R, Seese H, Stüben BO, Fard-Aghaie M, Duprée A, Scognamiglio P, Plitzko G, Meiners J, Soukou S, Wittek A, Manthey C, Maroulis IC, Arck PC, Perez D, Gao B, Zarogiannis SG, Strowig T, Pasqualini R, Arap W, Gosálvez JS, Kobold S, Prinz I, Guse AH, Tachezy M, Ghadban T, Heumann A, Li J, Melling N, Mann O, Izbicki JR, Pantel K, Schumacher U, Lohse AW, Flavell RA, Gagliani N, Huber S. Tissue resident iNKT17 cells facilitate cancer cell extravasation in liver metastasis via interleukin-22. Immunity, 56 (2023). PMID: 36630911
7. Marzi R, Bassi J, Silacci-Fregni C, Bartha I, Muoio F, Culap K, Sprugasci N, Lombardo G, Saliba C, Cameroni E, Cassotta A, Low JS, Walls AC, McCallum M, Tortorici MA, Bowen JE, Dellota EA, Dillen JR, Czudnochowski N, Pertusini L, Terrot T, Lepori V, Tarkowski M, Riva A, Biggiogero M, Franzetti-Pellanda A, Garzoni C, Ferrari P, Ceschi A, Giannini O, Havenar-Daughton O, Telenti A, Arvin A, Virgin HW, Sallusto F, Veesler D, Lanzavecchia A, Corti D, Piccoli L. Maturation of SARS-CoV-2 Spike-specific memory B cells drives resilience to viral escape. Iscience, 26 (2023). PMID: 36507220
8. Bowen JE, Park YJ, Stewart C, Brown JT, Sharkey WK, Walls AC, Joshi A, Sprouse KR, McCallum M, Tortorici MA, Franko NM, Logue JK, Mazzitelli IG, Nguyen AW, Silva RP, Huang Y, Low JS, Jerak J, Tiles SW, Ahmed K, Shariq A, Dan JM, Zhang Z, Weiskopf D, Sette A, Snell G, Posavad CM, Iqbal NT, Geffner J, Bandera A, Gori A, Sallusto F, Maynard JA, Crotty S, Van Voorhis WC, Simmerling C, Grifantini R, Chu HY, Corti D, Veesler D. SARS-CoV-2 spike conformation determines plasma neutralizing activity elicited by a wide panel of human vaccines. Science Immunology, 7 (2023). PMID: 36356052
9. Kelly JB, Carlson DE, Low JS, Thacker RW. Novel trends of genome evolution in highly complex tropical sponge microbiomes. Microbiome, 10 (2022). PMID: 36195901
10. Chandiran K, Suarez-Ramirez JE, Hu Y, Jellison ER, Ugur Z, Low JS, McDonald B, Kaech SM, Cauley LS. SMAD4 and TGFβ are architects of inverse genetic programs during fate determination of antiviral CTLs. Elife, 11 (2022). PMID: 35942952
11. Xu S, Chaudhary O, Rodríguez-Morales P, Sun X, Chen D, Zappasodi R, Xu Z, Pinto AFM, Williams A, Schulze I, Farsakoglu Y, Varanasi SK, Low JS, Tang W, Wang H, McDonald B, Tripple V, Downes M, Evans RM, Abumrad NA, Merghoub T, Wolchok JD, Shokhirev MN, Ho P, Witztum JL, Emu B, Cui G, Kaech SM. Uptake of oxidized lipids by the scavenger receptor CD36 promotes lipid peroxidation and dysfunction in CD8+ T cells in tumors. Immunity, 54 (2021). PMID: 34102100