For decades, the field of tuberculosis (TB) immunology has focused on T cell mediated protection, yet Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) still impacts one in four individuals worldwide today.

Our focus is on gaining a greater understanding of how bacteria on the skin surface affect skin health and diseases.

We employ a variety of methods including evolutionary analysis, genomics, and molecular biology to study the biology of infection.

The Yan Lab studies molecular mechanisms of innate immunity in infection, autoimmune diseases, cancer immunology and neurodegenative diseases.

Children with in-born errors of immunity are prone to life-threatening viral, bacterial, and fungal infections. We study the causes of their immune system problems, combining clinical insights and mouse models genocopying the various mutations. This work includes a profiling of immune responses to infections (e.g., COVID-19) in normal healthy individuals along with different patient populations (e.g. 22q11.2 deletion syndrome).

The goal of our research is to identify key immune checkpoints of gastrointestinal disorders that could be targeted for therapeutic intervention and drug development.