Topics:
● Infection and inflammation
● Brain-immune crosstalk in cancer
● Brain-metabolic control
● Unraveling brain-micobiota-gut interactions
● Exploring and therapeutically exploiting

Lab Introduction:
Our lab explores the interface between the brain and immune systems during health and disease. We examine the mediators, mechanisms, regulations, behaviors, and implications of brain-immune crosstalk. This research facilitates exciting new concepts and developments in both fields of neurobiology and immunology. Notably, we studied and applied ectopically expressed odorant receptors (ORs) for this study. ORs are the largest subfamily of G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs), accounting for more than 400 of 800 human GPCRs and 1,000 of an estimated 1,700 mouse GPCRs. GPCRs are a major drug target and have been extensively studied. However, studies have focused on the function of ORs in the nose and investigations of their ectopic expression and functions in nonolfactory tissues are lacking. The development of next-generation sequencing techniques has made it possible to detect and analyze genes that are lowly expressed or expressed in certain cell types. Consequently, research into the functions of ectopic ORs is growing rapidly and have been suggested as potential drug targets.

Advisor Professor : Koo, JaeHyung
Brain-Immune Axis Laboratory Homepage