To apply to our PhD Program, please go to this link and click on "Apply for Admissions" in the top right corner of the page.

For more information about our PhD Program, please contact Jeremiah Faith, PhD, at (212) 824-8953 or by email at jeremiah.faith@mssm.edu, or Alice Kamphorst, PhD at (212) 659-9305 or by email at alice.kamphorst@mssm.edu.

Based of continual feedback from Immunology students, we have designed our coursework to maximize time spent in the lab, to better take advantage of the numerous opportunities for translational research in our large research hospital, and to bring students up to date on the latest computationally intensive immunology technologies and analysis methods. In the first year, students complete foundational PhD-level courses in biomedical sciences and biostatistics, while pursuing laboratory rotations to find the right PhD mentor. In the second year, immunology students take Fundamentals in Immunology and select advanced immunology intensive short-courses.

Advanced Immunology Intensive Short-Courses: Clinical Focus

Given the Precision Immunology Institute’s expertise in translational immunology, the ready access to patient samples in this major medical center and the abundance of clinical faculty, these courses provide a vehicle for graduate students to build awareness of the possibilities of human research, the major problems in the field, and to relate to the patients that suffer from these conditions. The translational immunology bootcamps offered include Immunodeficiency and the International Course of Immunotherapy. The Immunotherapy course allows students to take a combination of four modules covering 1) mechanisms of action of immunomodulatory agents, 2) cancer immunotherapy, 3) immunotherapy of chronic inflammation, and 4) vaccine development in infectious disease. These changes allow our students to relate what they learn in the classroom, and from the lab bench, to real world clinical situations and to gain an appreciation of the impact of immunology training and identify under-studied clinical problems ripe for basic science research.

Advanced Immunology Intensive Short-Courses: Data Intensive Focus

With the advanced tools of the Human Immune Monitoring Center and the Genomics CoRE, there are numerous ways to generate rich immunology datasets. Developing skills to generate and analyze such large datasets is an essential skill for the future of immunology. “Data Intensive Immune Technology” provides an in-depth look at the latest multi-dimensional immunology data generation and analysis platforms. It is run in a seminar style with students presenting how an assay works, how data are processed, cost per sample, and other details to increase awareness of immune technologies and the hurdles to implementation. The topics included next-generation sequencing, antibody/TCR sequencing, epitope determination by antigen display, single-cell technologies, large-scale functional screens, CRISPR, and lineage tracing.

Fundamentals of Immunology

Maria Curotto de Lafaille, PhD is the director of the Fundamentals of Immunology course. The immune system plays an essential role in defense against pathogens and malignancies. This course will offer the fundamental concepts on the composition and function of the innate and adaptive immune systems. The goal is to provide students with the necessary knowledge tools for their training in Immunology and related research fields. Main basic topics addressed are the myeloid and NK cell linages, how T and B lymphocytes receptors are assembled, the development of immune responses and the generation of immunological memory. The course also includes lectures on immunity in inflammatory diseases and cancer, and special topics on frontier immune research areas and technologies.

Learning to critically evaluate the immunology literature, hearing the latest advances from world leaders, learning presentation skills, and moderator skills are essential scientific training.

Seminar Series

Speakers of international renown are invited and spend one to two days meeting with both faculty and trainees. This is an excellent opportunity for trainees to directly engage some of the major figures in Immunology and to present their work and get direct feedback. Students interact with the guest speaker either at lunch, at an informal mid-afternoon get together or even over dinner. There is also a student organized seminar speaker program whereby a small committee of students nominates potential seminar speakers. Each nomination is discussed and debated amongst the students who then vote on the speaker to invite. This student organized seminar speaker visits in one of our seminar speaker slots but their visit is entirely planned by the students.

Work in Progress Series 

On a weekly basis, we have an institute-wide work in progress series. Here, trainees (graduate students and post-docs, 2 per session) present their latest results in a cohesive fashion and receive feedback from the group at large. This seminar gives trainees an opportunity to gather his/her data from a period of time (usually 6-12 months) and attempt to coordinate results and get a better feel for his/her research direction. Two students serve as the moderator for each Work in Progress seminar to improve moderation skills and trainee interactions.

Journal Club

In the Immunology Journal Club, articles are selected from high quality journals and should reflect current areas of controversy or new paradigms. Questions and comments on the paper from all the students are posted online prior to the journal club, which are then further discussed in a live and interactive session. Given the broad interests of the faculty, these journal clubs are a valuable learning experience for both faculty and trainees.

Preprint Club

The Preprint Club is a multi-institutional Journal Club, co-founded by the Mount Sinai in NYC and Oxford university in the UK, that is focused on the review and highlight of immunology preprints by Early Career Researchers (ECR: PhD students and Post-Docs). We meet online on a weekly basis (1h/week) to present 2 recent preprints that are discussed and evaluated. The presenters are then invited to write a public review of the preprint that is posted on our website (www.preprintclub.com). In addition, every month, 1 or 2 preprints that have been deemed promising / high quality are the subject of a short highlight authored by the student/postdoc who presented it and a faculty in the journal Nature Review Immunology.

Nima Assad
Mentor: Miriam Merad
Thesis project: Profiling developmental stages of tertiary lymphoid structures in chronic inflammation
Contact: nima.assad@icahn.mssm.edu

Matthew Brown
Mentor: Nina Bhardwaj
Thesis project: Interrogating frameshift neoantigen-specific T cell dynamics in mismatch repair deficient tumor development.
Contact: matthew.brown@icahn.mssm.edu

Yonina Bykov
Mentor: Adolfo Garcia-Sastre
Thesis project: Understanding the mechanisms of the anti-tumor activity of novel oncolytic viruses and designing recombinant viruses as a treatment modality.
Contact: yonina.bykov@icahn.mssm.edu

Andrew Chan
Mentor: Anne Schaefer
Thesis project: Epigenetic Memory of Microglia in Response to Influenza Infection
Contact: andrew.chan@icahn.mssm.edu

Alice Chen Liaw
Mentor: Jeremiah Faith
Thesis project: Quantification of bacterial strain complexity in the human gut microbiota in health and disease
Contact: alice.chenliaw@icahn.mssm.edu

Theresa Chu
Mentor: Nina Bhardwaj
Thesis project: Studying neoantigen reactive T cells in Murine melanoma (B16F10) model
Contact: theresa.chu@icahn.mssm.edu

Evan Cody
Mentor: Peter Heeger
Thesis project: DAF (CD55) Dependent Regulation of Memory B Cells
Contact: evan.cody@icahn.mssm.edu

Jacob Glickman
Mentor: Emma Guttman
Thesis project: Deciphering the skin and systemic phenotype of inflammatory skin diseases may reveal widespread immune dysregulation and facilitate drug development
Contact: jacob.glickman@icahn.mssm.edu

Jake Herb
Mentor: Judy Cho
Thesis project: Identifying Drivers of Periductal Fibrosis in Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis Using Single-Cell Analysis of Patient Biospecimens
Contact: jake.herb@icahn.mssm.edu

Aislinn Keane
Mentor: Talia Swartz
Thesis project: Nicotine and the NLRP3 Inflammasome in HIV-1-Associated CNS Inflammation
Contact: aislinn.keane@icahn.mssm.edu

Annie Khamhoung
Mentor: Cameron McAlpine
Thesis project: The immune system and neurodegenerative disease
Contact: annie.khamhoung@icahn.mssm.edu

Rachel Levantovsky
Mentor: Judy Cho
Thesis project: Defining mechanisms of perianal fistula pathogenesis in African and European ancestry Crohn's disease patients
Contact: rachel.levantovsky@icahn.mssm.edu

Matthew Lin
Mentor: Joshua Brody
Thesis project: Enhancing bystander killing in tumor immunotherapy
Contact: matthew.lin@icahn.mssm.edu

Katherine Lindblad
Mentor: Amaia Lujambio
Thesis project: Tumor-Intrinsic and -Extrinsic Mechanisms of Immune Escape in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Contact: katherine.lindblad@icahn.mssm.edu

Gabrielle Lubitz
Mentor: Joshua Brody
Thesis project: Defining a cross-primed T cell signature in lymphoma in situ vaccination immunotherapyy
Contact: gabrielle.lubitz@icahn.mssm.edu

Adam Marks
Mentor: Brian Brown
Thesis project: Bispecific Linear Epitope Engagers (BiLEEs): A novel platform for immunotherapeutic drug target discovery
Contact:adam.marks@icahn.mssm.edu

Jaime Mateus-Tique
Mentor: Brian Brown
Thesis project: Optimizing Myeloid-directed CAR-T for cancer immunotherapy of solid tumors
jaime.mateus-tique@icahn.mssm.edu

Chang Moon
Mentor: Miriam Merad
Thesis project: The investigation of mregDC signature using ProCode technology
Contact: chang.moon@icahn.mssm.edu

Matthew Park
Mentor: Miriam Merad
Thesis project: Identifying myeloid determinants of age-associated anti-tumor immunity
Contact: matthew.park@icahn.mssm.edu

Foramben Patel
Mentor: Amir Horowitz and Lewis Silverman
Thesis project: Establishing the role of NK cell development in hematopoiesis and in myelodysplastic syndrome
Contact: foramben.patel@icahn.mssm.edu

Luisanna Pia
Mentor: Brian Brown
Thesis project: Identifying genetic determinants of tumor immune composition by spatial functional genomics
Contact: luisanna.pia@icahn.mssm.edu

Tamar Plitt
Mentor: Jeremiah Faith
Thesis project: Identifying colorectal cancer-promoting microbiotas and their mechanisms of action
Contact: tamar.plitt@icahn.mssm.edu

Jamie Redes
Mentor: Maria Lafaille
Thesis project: Characterizing the IgG1 Memory B Cells that are precursors of pathogenic IgE
Contact: jamie.redes@icahn.mssm.edu

Ashley Reid
Mentor: Nina Bhardwaj and Nicolas Vabret
Thesis project: Harnessing Transposable Element Immunogenicity in Melanoma
Contact: ashley.reid@icahn.mssm.edu

Laura Rosenberg
Mentors: Nicolas Vabret
Thesis project: Co-opting the viral mimicry response to counteract tumor chemoresistance
Contact: laura.rosenberg@icahn.mssm.edu

Dan Fu Ruan
Mentors: Amir Horowitz and Peter Heeger
Thesis project: Contribution of HLA Class I disparities on the strength of NK cell alloreactive immune response in kidney transplantation
Contact: danfu.ruan@icahn.mssm.edu

Miriam Saffern
Mentors: Robert Samstein
Thesis project: TBD
Contact: miriam.saffern@icahn.mssm.edu

Christos Sazeides
Mentors:Dusan Bogunovic
Thesis project: Biochemical and Transcriptional Dynamics of Trisomy 21
Contact: christos.sazeides@icahn.mssm.edu

Joan Shang
Mentor: Jeremiah Faith
Thesis project: Dissecting the Gut Microbiota for Immune Checkpoint Blockade (ICB)-Resisting Microbes and Exploring the Generalizability of Microbiota-ICB Studies
Contact: joan.shang@icahn.mssm.edu

Brian Soong
Mentor: Miriam Merad and Sai Ma
Thesis project: TBD
Contact: brian.soong@icahn.mssm.edu

O’Jay Stewart
Mentor: Dusan Bogunovic
Thesis The Role of Monoallelic Expression (MAE) in Incomplete Penetrance of Inborn Errors of Immunity (IEI)
Contact: ojay.stewart@icahn.mssm.edu

Prerna Suri
Mentor: Robert Samstein
Thesis project: Understanding the influence of DNA damage repair pathways on Immunotherapy outcomes
Contact: prerna.suri@icahn.mssm.edu

Robert Sweeney
Mentors: Miriam Merad and Sacha Gnjatic
Thesis project: Investigating the Role of Differential Tumor-Specific B cell Responses in Solid Cancers
Contact: robert.sweeney@icahn.mssm.edu

Alexander Tepper
Mentor: Brian Brown
Thesis project: Investigating lung tumor composition and immunity using Perturb-Map and t-CyCIF
Contact: alexander.tepper@icahn.mssm.edu

Michelle Tran
Mentor: Nina Bhardwaj
Thesis project: Myeloid cell resistance to immune checkpoint blockade in bladder cancer
Contact: michelle.tran@icahn.mssm.edu

Abishek Balachandra Vaidya
Mentor: Alice Kamphorst
Thesis project: Dissecting CD4 help programs in the differentiation of PD-1+ CD8 T Cells
Contact: abishekbalachandra.vaidya@icahn.mssm.edu

Natalie Vaninov
Mentor: Robert Samstein
Thesis project: Defining the Determinants of Immune Response in DNA Homologous Recombination Deficient Tumors
Contact: natalie.vaninov@icahn.mssm.edu

Chittampalli Yashaswini
Mentor: Scott Friedman
Thesis project: Establishing the relative contributions of senescent and non-senescent HSCs to NASH fibrosis and HCC
Contact: chittampalli.yashaswini@icahn.mssm.edu