Description:

Title: Decoding the Dialogues Between Epithelial Stem Cells and Immune System 

Topic: “Epithelial stem cells reside in the major barrier tissues, governing the homeostatic regeneration and injury repair. As long-lived and indispensable cells, an essential precondition for these cells to maintain long-term fitness is to be able to rapidly sense, respond and endure bouts of inflammation initiated by infections or tissue injuries, which produce toxic metabolites, cytocidal cytokines, and damaging enzymes. It has long been assumed that epithelial stem cells are particularly vulnerable to inflammation and must be protected within an ‘immune privileged’ niche. However, this theory overlooks a vital scenario, wherein during injury repair, the SC niche is compromised, and epithelial SCs must be mobilized to exit their natural niche to enter a highly inflammatory environment for regenerating the damaged tissue. In this talk, I will first discuss our recent findings that uncover a remarkable immune-modulatory capacity triggered in wound-activated migrating epithelial stem cells, showcasing them as orchestrators of both inflammation and immune tolerance. Importantly, I will also discuss how tumor initiating stem cells in squamous cell carcinomas can hijack the epithelial stem cell-specific inflammatory adaptation programs to shape the immune landscape. Thus, these studies provided new insights into the fundamental biology of how epithelial stem cells drive immune tolerance, and how the maladaptation of these normal stem cell features in cancer can drive immune resistance.”

Speaker: Yuxuan "Phoenix" Miao, PhD,

Assistant Professor

The University of Chicago

Ben May Department of Cancer Research

Host: Chyung-Ru Wang, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Microbiology-Immunology