Ding Jeak Ling

Our lab focuses on: Innate immunity and cancer immunomodulation
We study innate immune response to acute phase infection, and characterize the ensemble of immune-responsive pathogen-recognition receptors and ask what regulates their immediate action which boosts pathogen surveillance and innate immune response. Since infection-inflammation condition is a precursor to the tumor microenvironment and cancer metastasis, it is pertinent for us to query how such pathophysiological conditions might impact or direct innate immune sentinel cells to cross-talk and promote or suppress cancer cell growth and proliferation. Some research projects in our lab include investigations on: (a) how polymicrobial infections drive crosstalk between TLR pathways (e.g. TLR3-TLR7), and how immune responsive transcription factors and gene promoters are regulated; (b) how cytokine genes are regulated during infection and tumorigenesis; (c) how monocytes /macrophages live or die during acute phase infection and how they crosstalk with NK cells to immunomodulate cancer cells. As we define the functional significance of pathogen-responsive receptors, we also maintain an interest in identifying and developing antimicrobials and anti-inflammatory/anti-cancer therapeutics.