Hamlet Chu

E-mail: chuxx080@umn.edu

Thesis Advisor: Marc Jenkins

Year entered: 2005

Degrees received:
B.S., Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, 2004

Honors and awards:

• J. Jacob Kaplan Award 2009
• Beatrice Z. Milne and Theodore Brandenburg Award 2009
• Predoctoral Felleowship, American Heart Association, Midwest Affiliation, January 2008 - 2009
• MICaB Travel Award 2008
• Scholarship, Keystone Meeting - Tolerance in Transplantation and Autoimmunity, January 2008
• Golden Pipetman Award, Fall Semester 2007
• Scholarship, Keystone Meeting - Immunological Memory, March 2007

Thesis research:
A naive T cell pool is capable of providing diverse yet specific protection against pathogens. This hallmark of adaptive immunity is due to the recognition of fragments of these pathogens in the form of peptide bound to Major Histocompatibility Complex by a unique receptor expressed on each T cell clone. Despite the importance of analyzing each pathogen-specific population within the T cell pool, research on this topic had been impossible due to its rare frequency (as low as 1 per 106 cells). During my graduate studies, colleagues and I developed a novel enrichment approach to detect and analyze T cell populations with defined specificity in unmanipulated mice and humans. Our results provide cellular and molecular explanations as to why immune responses vary for different specificities.

Publications:

• Chu HH, Moon JJ, Takada K, Pepper M, Molitor JA, Schacker TW, Hogquist KA, Jameson SC, Jenkins MK. 2009. Positive Selection optimizes the number and function of MHCII-restricted CD4+ T cell clones in naïve polyclonal repertoire. PNAS accepted.
• Moon JJ, Chu HH, Hataye J, Pagán AJ, Pepper M, McLachlan JB, Zell T, and Jenkins MK. 2009. Tracking epitope-specific T cells. Nat Protoc Apri;4(4):565-81.
• Burchill MA, J Yang, KB Kang, JJ Moon, HH Chu, CW Lio, AL Vegoe, CS Hsieh,
  MK Jenkins, MA Farrar. 2008. Linked T cell receptor and cytokine signaling govern the development of the regulatory T cell repertoire. Immunity. Jan;28(1):112-21.
• Moon JJ*, HH Chu*, M Pepper, SJ McSorley, SC Jameson, KM Ross, MK Jenkins. 2007. Naïve CD4+ T cell frequency varies for different epitopes and predicts repertoire diversity and response magnitude. Immunity. Aug;27(2):203-13. (*co-first authors)
• Karman J, Chu HH, Co DO, Seroogy CM, Sandor M, Fabry Z. 2006. Dendritic cells amplify T cell-mediated immune responses in the central nervous system. J Immunol Dec 1;177(11):7750-60.