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Portrait of Wen Lu, Ph.D.

Wen Lu, Ph.D.

Principal Investigator

Wen is focused on deciphering the impact of aging on the organs of the immune system and pinpointing potential therapeutic targets that could rejuvenate their functions.

About

As humans age, there is a marked decrease in T cell number and clonal diversity, primarily due to the waning functionality of the lymphoid organs that form our immune system. Wen delves into the age-induced cellular and structural transformations within these lymphoid organs through a blend of genetic manipulation, transcriptomic studies, and advanced flow cytometry methods.

Before joining Calico, Wen was a postdoctoral scholar in Arthur Weiss’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco, where he investigated T cell development and survival, and the signaling events that govern these critical processes. Through this work, he was the first to demonstrate the involvement of membrane contact sites formed by the endoplasmic reticulum and the plasma membrane in T cell receptor signaling, which is essential to regulating the immune system.

Education:
  • Postdoc in Medicine and Immunology, University of California, San Francisco
  • Ph.D. in Immunology, Baylor College of Medicine
  • B.Sc in Biology, Tsinghua University