Thuc Le

AR-256 Center for Health Sciences

Research Description

My research focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms that control immune responses, with a particular emphasis on how nucleotide metabolism governs and contributes to immune activation and response. Nucleotide metabolism interconnects to many biological pathways. Therefore, cells face choices about achieving their metabolic goals, whether to replicate their DNA during proliferation or siphon nucleosides and nucleotides into the extracellular space for cell communication via the purinergic receptors. There is interest in thoroughly understanding how immune cells direct their nucleotide metabolism to balance their nucleotide pools and elucidating the immunologic consequences when pools become imbalanced due to stress and disease. This is particularly intriguing, given that nucleotide metabolism is influenced not only by substrate availability but also by signaling pathways elicited by the very nucleoside and nucleotides themselves.