SUNDRUD LAB

Mark received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Immunology from Vanderbilt University, and performed post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School as an Irvington Institute fellow of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI). After his postdoc, he spent 3 years leading Discovery Biology research at Tempero Pharmaceuticals, a GSK-funded start-up biotech company located in Cambridge, MA. Mark was then to join the Faculty of The Scripps Research Institute’s Jupiter, Florida (Scripps Florida) campus as an Assistant Professor in 2013. He was promoted to Full Professor (with Tenure) in January 2022, and joined Dartmouth Health and Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College in September 2022. Mark’s research focuses broadly on identifying, and ultimately manipulating, novel pathways underlying T cell-driven inflammatory diseases.

Koichi grew up in Tokyo, Japan and enrolled in the faculty of Agriculture in Shinshu University. He subsequently received a Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 2022 – where he investigated the function of T cell receptor signal strength in the development of epidermal γδ T cells at Dr. Kazuhiko Takahara lab. In October 2022, he moved to the US and joined the Sundrud lab as a postdoc and is currently elucidating the mechanisms by which bile acids regulate gut physiology and inflammatory bowel diseases. Outside of research, Koichi enjoys reading books, walking around, and experiencing the unique aspects of US culture.

Zhiping is a postdoctoral researcher co-mentored in the Sundrud Lab and the O’Toole Lab. She obtained her Ph.D. from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, where she focused on how diet regulates intestinal immune response in diarrhea and IBD. Driven by a passion for mucosal immunology, she joined the Sundrud lab to work on understanding how endogenous bile acids regulate host immune response in the context of IBD and how bile acid-mucosal immune system response to commensal microenvironment. Outside of my research, I’m a LEGO player and collector, and enjoy playing my tiny Ukulele.

Courtney received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA. She then joined the Sundrud lab at Scripps Florida for her Ph.D. prior to the lab moving to Dartmouth. Her doctoral project explores the role of the nuclear receptor CAR in regulating IL-10 expression in CD4 T cells. In her free time, Courtney enjoys baking, crocheting and spending time on the beach. 

Akshaya received her undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from the Amrita School of Biotechnology in India. She then obtained a Master of Science in Integrated Immunology from the University of Oxford. Akshaya joined Mark Sundrud’s lab at the Scripps Research Institute and transferred to the Microbiology and Immunology program when the lab moved to Dartmouth. Her research focuses on identifying how metabolic changes influence the development of cytotoxic T cell responses to infection. Akshaya enjoys travelling, reading a good book and baking in her free time. 

Huijuan grew up in China and received her B.S. in Pharmacy from Nankai University. She then moved to Philadelphia and obtained a master’s degree in Biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania. As a master’s student Huijuan worked in Dr. Yi Fan’s lab, focusing on vascular transformation in cancer and developing new immunotherapies for glioblastoma. In 2021, she joined the Molecular and Cellular Biology program at Dartmouth. As a doctoral student in the the Sundrud lab she is currently establishing a multiplexed nuclear receptor reporter system. Outside the lab, Huijuan loves spending time with her friends and their cats. She enjoys playing ping pong, kickboxing, baking, and cooking. She also plans on learning how to snowboard next winter (hopefully without getting too many bruises!)

Caitlin received her B.S. in molecular biology with a minor in health, medicine, and society from Lehigh University in 2021. While at Lehigh, she participated in the HHMI SEA-PHAGES program and worked in the Simon Lab assessing novel compounds to treat traumatic brain injury. She then went on to postbac at the National Eye Institute in the Caspi Lab where she investigated the role of the gut microbiota in autoimmune uveitis. Caitlin is co-mentored with the Ross lab and her doctoral research focuses on understanding how members of the gut microbiota stimulate immune system development and how this may differ between health and disease contexts. In her free time, Caitlin enjoys reading, playing the flute, skiing, and trail riding with her horse, Ranger.

Henry is the bioinformatician in the Sundrud lab and is responsible for analyzing all the the big data experiments that we run, whether its single cell or bulk RNA-seq analysis, analyzing the effect of different treatments on bile acid concentrations, or really any large dataset that the lab generates. Henry likes trying to figure out ways to present data in an understandable manner, and using code to realize my visions for how data can be presented. When not sitting at a computer, she like hiking, kayaking, and playing board games with friends.

JoNell earned a Master of Science in chemistry from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in 1985. She began microbiology/immunology research position in 1986 at Dartmouth Medical School (now Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth). She has over forty years of experience in molecular biology, microbiology, immunology and biochemistry and in her current role provides general research support for the Sundrud lab.