Cytokines are small protein messengers that transmit information from the outside of the cell to the inside of the cell. They are important regulators of the immune system, and when these messengers misfire, it can result in inflammatory disease, autoimmunity or cancer. Our research is focused on determining what these molecules look like, how they function, and how the signals they send are regulated.
We generate detailed 3D “pictures” of these molecules, and the molecules they interact with. We use this information to understand how they work, what is going wrong in a disease setting, and to try to design drugs to change how they function.
