Scripps Research Adds 8 Faculty Members, Experts in Immunology, Medicine, More

Scripps Research is welcoming eight new scientists whose research focuses on HIV, cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune disorders and more.

“This enormously talented group of scientists brings a diverse array of cutting-edge science to us that will further enrich our community,” says Peter Schultz, PhD, president and CEO of Scripps Research. “These appointments will lead to exciting collaborations and breakthroughs as we continue to push the frontiers of scientific discovery and innovation in medicine.”

Three of the new faculty members are in the immunology and microbiology department:

• Renan V. H. de Carvalho, assistant professor – in revealing what factors promote long-lived immune responses, in particular, he studies an important component related to the immune system: plasma cells (PCs), the key antibody-producing machines in the body. De Carvalho comes to Scripps Research from the Rockefeller University, where he was a postdoctoral research fellow.
• Darrell Irvine, professor – will collaborate across immunology, microbiology and other areas to engage with translational science opportunities, particularly around infectious disease and cancer. A major effort of his laboratory at Scripps Research will be directed toward vaccine development for HIV and cancer immunotherapy. Irvine, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, was previously a professor at MIT, where he also received his PhD.
• Tiantian Liu, assistant professor – how to develop vaccines for stimulating T-cell responses is still an unsolved question. Liu aims to address this problem by investigating the development and function of dendritic cells, a specialized immune cell type that plays essential roles in T-cell activation. Liu conducted her postdoctoral research at Washington University in St. Louis.

Two other incoming professors worked in biology and medicine, respectively:

• Dorothee Kern, Integrative Structural and Computational Biology – focuses on protein dynamics at the heart of biology and rational drug design. Kern has pioneered ways to unravel how those dynamics control biological processes, ranging from enzyme catalysis to signaling to drug binding. Kern joins Scripps as investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She previously worked as a professor at Brandeis University.
• Amy Lightner, Molecular Medicine – focuses on inflammatory bowel disease, which is on the rise globally, now affecting 1:100 in the U.S. alone, but treatment options remain limited. Her lab studies the cause of the disease to discover potential therapeutics that focus on tissue regeneration and restoration. She is a colorectal surgeon at Scripps Clinic specializing in inflammatory bowel disease and previously worked at the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic Rochester.

The other new additions are:

• Christian Diercks, Chemistry, assistant professor – will leverage his background in both materials chemistry and directed evolution to develop therapeutics and gene delivery vehicles that target specific cell types and tissues. Before his postdoctoral work at Scripps Research, he earned his PhD in chemistry at UC Berkeley.
• Ann Kennedy, Neuroscience, associate professor – studies the underlying neuroscience and brain structures that give rise to fundamental behaviors related to fear, survival and social interaction. Previously, she worked as an assistant professor at Northwestern University. Before that, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Caltech.
• Meng Zhang, Molecular and Cellular Biology, assistant professor – focuses on developing new tools to deepen the understanding of how tissues function at a molecular and single-cell resolution. Her lab’s research holds significant potential for advancing knowledge of tissue development, disease progression and precision medicine. Zhang comes from Harvard University’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology where she was a postdoctoral fellow.

For a deeper look at the work of the new faculty members, see Scripps Research.