Research Focus

Systems immunology, immune repertoire, high-throughput sequencing, single cell analysis, and microfluidics.

Research Interests

Professor Jiang’s research is focused on systems immunology. A dysfunctional or dysregulated immune system not only fails to offer protection, it can also introduce unnecessary immune responses such as allergies or autoimmune diseases. The key to immune modulation and engineering and regenerative medicine is to understand how the normal immune system works. However, a full understanding of the complex interactions among immune cells and between immune cells and cytokines and chemokines requires a quantitative and systems approach. Using high-throughput sequencing and single-cell analysis in combination with quantitative analysis, Professor Jiang is interested in answering the following questions: How does the immune system develop and age? What are the molecular signatures of autoimmune diseases? Why does the immune system tolerate tumors?

• Li J., Wu D., Jiang N., Zhuang Y., “Deletion of the Id2 and Id3 genes impairs preTCR selection and promotes Vα14-Jα18 rearrangements and expansion of iNKT cells.” J. Immunol., accepted.
• Zhang Y., Jiang N., Klopocki A.G., McEver R.P., Zhu C., “P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 forms dimeric interactions with E-selectin but monomeric interactions with L-selectin on cell surfaces.” PLOS ONE, 2013;8(2):e57202. Epub 2013 Feb 25. PMID:  23451187  PMCID:  PMC3581448.
• Jiang N., He J., Weinstein J.A., Penland L., Sasaki S., He X.S., Dekker C.L., Zheng N.Y., Huang M., Sullivan M., Wilson P.C., Greenberg H.B., Davis M.M., Fisher D.S., Quake S.R., “Lineage Structure of the Human Antibody Repertoire in Response to Influenza Vaccination.” Science Translational Medicine, 2013 Feb 6;5(171):171ra19. PMID: 23390249 NIHMS478083
  Discussed by Dr. Francis Collins in his NIH Director’s blog, http://directorsblog.nih.gov/taking-a-snapshot-of-the-human-immune-system/#more-538
• Jiang N., Weinstein J.A., Penland L., White R.A. III, Fisher D.S., Quake S.R., “Determinism and stochasticity during maturation of the zebrafish antibody repertoire.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A., 2011 Mar 29;108(13):5348-53.
• Jiang N., Huang J., Edwards L.J., Zhang Y., Liu B., Beal C.D., Evavold B.D., Zhu C., “Two-stage cooperative T cell receptor-peptide major histocompatibility complex-CD8 trimolecular interactions amplify antigen discrimination.” Immunity, 2011 Jan 28;34(1):13-23. *** Faculty of 1000, scored 10 “Exceptional”, http://f1000.com/8208956 See Preview by P. Anton van der Merwe1 and Shaun-Paul Cordoba, “Late Arrival: Recruiting Coreceptors to the T Cell Receptor Complex”, Immunity, 2011 Jan 28:34(1):1-3
• Huang J., Zarnitsyna V.I., Liu B., Edwards L.J., Jiang N., Evavold BD, Zhu C., “The kinetics of two-dimensional TCR and pMHC interactions determine T-cell responsiveness,” Nature, 2010; 464(7290):932-6.
• Kim J.V., Jiang N., Tadokoro C.E., Liu L., Ransohoff R.M., Lafaille J.J., Dustin M.L., “Two-photon laser scanning microscopy imaging of intact spinal cord and cerebral cortex reveals requirement for CXCR6 and neuroinflammation in immune cell infiltration of cortical injury sites,” J. Immunol. Methods 2010; 352(1-2):89-100.
• Weinstein J.A. *, Jiang N. *, White R.A. III, Fisher D.S., Quake S.R., “High-throughput Sequencing of the Zebrafish Antibody Repertoire,” Science, 2009; 324(5928):807-10. *These authors contributed equally.
• Wasserman, H.A., Beal C.D., Zhang, Y., Jiang, N., Zhu, C., Evavold, B.D. “MHC variant peptide-mediated anergy of encephalitogenic T cells requires SHP-1,” J. Immunol., 2008;181(10):6843-6849.
• Chien, Y., Jiang, N., Li, F., Zhang, F., Zhu, C., Leckband, D. “Two Stage Cadherin Kinetics Require Multiple Extracellular Domains but Not the Cytoplasmic Region,” J. Biol. Chem., 2008; 283: 1848-1856.
• Li, P.*, Jiang, N.*, Nagarajan, S., Wohlhueter, R., Selvaraj, P., Zhu, C. “Affinity and Kinetic Analysis of Fcγ Receptor IIIa (CD16a) Binding to IgG Ligands,” J. Biol. Chem., 2007; 282: 6210-6221. *These authors contributed equally.
• Long, M., Chen, J., Jiang, N., Selvaraj, P., McEver, R.P., Zhu, C. “Probabilistic Modeling of Rosette Formation,” Biophys. J., 2006; 91: 352-363.