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Jonathan Kagan

@jkagan1.bsky.social

Scientist at Boston Children's Hospital, Professor at Harvard Medical School, Husband, Father

194 Posts917 Follower 30 Folgt

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 21h ago

Evidence continues to accumulate that dendritic cell activation state is as important as antigens in anti-tumor immunity. A new study confirms CCR7 DCs as key drivers of defense. www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

CCR7+ activated dendritic cells are essential for spontaneous and immunotherapy-driven anti-tumor immunity

Dendritic cells (DCs) can acquire distinct functional states. To examine how different DC states orchestrate anti-tumor immunity, Koufaki et al. develop mouse models to label and ablate CCR7+ DCs and ...

cell.com

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · yesterday

Highly recommend!

Ivan Zanoni@lozanzi.bsky.social · yesterday

#ImmunometabolismPower! Excited to share our review @cp-cellchembiol.bsky.social with super-talented @tristramryan.bsky.social about the activity of immunometabolites of the #TCA #Krebs cycle working as metabolic damage-associated molecular patterns #metaDAMPs in health & disease!

Kat Barnett @katbarnett.bsky.social · last wk.

Had so much fun writing this commentary for #msphere! Grateful for the opportunity to write about work that’s shaped my perspective on innate immunity and RNA virus infection journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

mSphere of Influence: Damage in RNA virus infection—a feature or a bug? | mSphere

How does the body recognize viral infection? How do viruses engage the immune system during replication? These seemingly simple questions led me to study pattern recognition, a concept first proposed ...

journals.asm.org

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 3w ago

A new PAMP, a new innate immunity principle and a new preclinical application. I am so pleased to share our study on STING activation mechanisms in health and disease. Led by the fantastic Stephanie Ragland, follow the link below for a summary of all we learned. www.cell.com/immunity/ful...

Purine and pyrimidine-based bacterial cyclic dinucleotides egress the phagosome and activate the innate immune sensor STING

Innate immune recognition of bacteria is thought to center on cell-surface or endosomal pattern recognition receptors such as TLRs. Ragland et al. identify an intraphagosomal cyclic dinucleotide (CDN)...

cell.com

Dr. Sunny Shin @sunnyshinlab.bsky.social · 3w ago

Amazing week of science & camaraderie at GRC Microbial Toxins & Pathogenicity! Many thanks to chair @torreslab.bsky.social & the discussion leaders, speakers, poster presenters, attendees, & staff for an awesome meeting! Excited to organize the next one with new vice-chair @sauerlab.bsky.social!

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 3w ago

A query: cGAS, STING, AIM2, NODs, NLRs, RLRs: All these PRRs are categorized as pathogen sensors, because they reside in the cytoplasm. In contrast, TLRs sense non-pathogens and pathogens. How confirmed is this dogma, beyond the usual (small) set of pathogens that we all study?

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 3w ago

Cyclic dinucleotide (CDN) transporters have been studied primarily with pure STING ligands. Yet, most CDNs are not floating around in the extracellular space; they are hidden inside bacteria. I wonder what CDN transporters do in the context of infection.

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 3w ago

Has anyone studied the role of STING in genetically engineered mouse models (GEMM) of cancer, or are we still only using implantable tumors?

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 3w ago

A query for the immunologists: Are there any PAMPs left to discover?

Ivan Zanoni @lozanzi.bsky.social · 3mo ago

#InterferonPower #InflammasomePower! Thrilled for our 💥#NewPaper💥 @natimmunol.nature.com spearheaded by Kautilya Jena showing that our #fungal adjuvant #Mannadjuvant prolongs & potentiates protection of mRNA vaccines via #IL1b & #IFNs, broadening it to new variants & overcoming antigenic imprinting!

A glycan-based adjuvant expands the breadth and duration of protection of mRNA-based vaccines

Nature Immunology - Jena, Qu et al. show that mannadjuvant, a formulation of fungal mannan and aluminum hydroxide, increases the magnitude, durability and breadth of the response elicited by...

rdcu.be

Waggoner Lab @labwaggoner.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A glycan-based adjuvant expands the breadth and duration of protection of mRNA-based vaccines www.nature.com/articles/s41... @lozanzi.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social @natimmunol.nature.com

Ivan Zanoni @lozanzi.bsky.social · 3mo ago

More than thrilled to share that I’ve been promoted to full (tenured) Professor @harvardmed.bsky.social @harvard.edu! This only happened because of the hard work of many people, but I want to dedicate this promotion to my grandmas, Nonna Maria & Nonna Vevè. A #FirstGen thread 🧵 1/x

Kuchroo Lab @kuchroolab.bsky.social · 3mo ago

An adaptive source of IL-17A/F is indispensable for EAE induction! And B cell-derived IL-17 induces IL-23 signaling required to convert stem-like Th17 cells to encephalitogenic Th17 cells. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An adaptive cellular source of IL-17A and IL-17F is critical for the induction of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

B cells are a critical adaptive immune cell type in the development of TH17 cell–mediated experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

science.org

Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I was interviewed by @katiepickup.bsky.social recently for @dmmjournal.bsky.social. This has a little bit of my background, a little bit on science and mentoring, and a little bit (ok, more than a little bit) on funding in science. Check it out at: journals.biologists.com/dmm/article/...

How important do you feel discovery research and ‘basic’ science is for understanding disease?

Well, I have a little bit of a biased view on the topic, since I'm a basic scientist myself. The lab has made more and more discoveries with very strong therapeutic implications, and often people ask me why we are not pursuing these further ourselves. Part of it is that I think about this very much as an ecosystem. People have different skills – I have colleagues who are very good at the application side of things and I have other colleagues, including people in my lab, who are very good at the basic science. There are a lot of very smart people at every stage in the ecosystem and, sometimes, we have to acknowledge that we can't all be experts in every step. A lot of basic science discoveries will end up having profound implications in the clinic – if you don't have the full imagination about how to get it there, that's okay, because you're still a very important piece of the jigsaw puzzle and other people can help. If the basic science discoveries didn't exist, then it's quite possible that the well would run dry. We cannot simply rely on the idea that the therapies currently in clinical trials are going to be enough because we already know that – for diseases, such as cancer, and with rapidly evolving viruses – there needs to be a constant influx of new ideas to stay ahead of the arms race. I'd also make a plug for the fact that, ultimately, we are all interested in human disease, but disease research in humans is not ethical or possible. This is why creating and studying model organisms in a high-throughput, low-investment context is incredibly important. We cannot just say ‘okay, we're going to stop work on anything that is not related to human research’, because – actually – it's all relevant to humans.

Do you think basic science is particularly threatened by cuts to funding?

Science itself is quite uncertain. We do experiments wondering if they will even work. It's discovery, and you don't know where it's going to lead. It could lead to a billion-dollar company, something like mRNA vaccines or CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, or it could simply be something that interests you. Sometimes it might appear esoteric from the outside, but there are very smart people dedicated to this work. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that most of this work is paid for by taxpayers, but funding uncertainty creates a very unstable foundation. If the foundations are weak, people are going to get much more conservative about the science that they're doing and worry that ‘blue-skies research’ is not worth pursuing because it won't get funded. And that would be a mistake because all innovation in science really originates from blue-skies, basic research. The second thing that uncertainty does is send a message to our young trainees – who are our future – that this is not a career option that will provide professional and personal stability. I worry that this kind of uncertainty will mean we lose an entire generation of people, and that would be a loss we might not be able to overcome.

Kat Barnett @katbarnett.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I've gotten lots of questions about our co-culture systems to study epithelial-immune interactions in viral infections, so wrote a step-by-step guide! I hope this will help anyone looking to adapt these protocols for their research. currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Co‐Culture Systems to Study Epithelial‐Immune Interactions During SARS‐CoV‐2 Infection

Robust inflammatory responses to viral infection are mediated by immune cell populations, including monocytes and dendritic cells. However, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2...

currentprotocols.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Want to know how cancer vaccines can keep you alive? Very pleased to join several luminaries in the field to offer a comprehensive review on this important topic. @harvardmed.bsky.social @bostonchildrens.bsky.social #cancer #vaccine www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Clinical development of cancer vaccines - Nature Medicine

This Review highlights insights from recent clinical trials and discusses critical factors for optimizing cancer vaccines, with a focus on proxies for vaccine efficacy, neoantigen selection, modular p...

nature.com

Dr. Sunny Shin @sunnyshinlab.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Please join us for the Cold Spring Harbor Asia @cshlnews.bsky.social meeting on Bacterial Infection & Host Defense this May 11-15 in Suzhou, China! We have a fantastic lineup of speakers. Abstract deadline is March 6. Hope to see you there!

Poster of the 2026 CSHA meeting on Bacterial Infection & Host Defense.

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Increasing evidence that STING has functions beyond DNA viruses. A new study reports that STING restricts influenza infection, independently of IFN. This work complements prior studies that STING prevents infection with diverse RNA viruses. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

STING–NF-κB signaling builds an influenza spillover barrier

Influenza pandemics are often traced back to the spillover of avian influenza A viruses (IAVs) to humans. However, barriers against IAV transmission remain elusive. We demonstrated human stimulator of...

science.org

Inflammasome Lab @inflammasomelab.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Poster deadline is approaching for @keystoneSymposia.bsky.social #InnateImmunity: Diversity in #HostDefense & Disease, this March in Banff! See scholarship, abstract and registration: keysym.us/KSInnateImmune26 #KSInnateImmune26 @jkagan1.bsky.social @brozlab.bsky.social

Innate Immunity: Diversity in Host Defense and Disease | Keystone Symposia

Join us at the Keystone Symposia on Innate Immunity: Diversity in Host Defense and Disease, March 2026, in Banff, with field leaders!

keysym.us

Jakub Began @jakubegan.bsky.social · 6mo ago

PAPER ALERT! I am excited to share that our study describing the molecular mechanism of caspase-4 activation has just been published in Immunity. www.cell.com/immunity/ful... I would like to thank all the co-authors for their valuable contributions. Well done guys! Link for short summary below👇

Caspase-4 binds to LPS membranes with positive curvature for non-canonical inflammasome activation

The cytosolic LPS sensor caspase-4 controls antibacterial immunity by inducing pyroptosis and cytokine secretion. Began et al. show how remodeling of LPS membranes by interferon-induced GTPase GBP1 pr...

cell.com

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Too much data, too little thinking. A important essay from Ruslan Medzhitov on the importance of understanding data, not just generating it. A must read. @Yale www.nature.com/articles/s41...

On the balance of knowledge - Nature Reviews Immunology

Ruslan Medzhitov shares his thoughts on the balance between generating data and developing theories in immunology, with a focus on exploring the rules that govern complex systems.

nature.com

The American Association of Immunologists @aai.org · 6mo ago

🌟 Congratulations to the 2026 Class of Distinguished Fellows of AAI (DFAAI)! From groundbreaking research to dedicated service, these members represent the pinnacle of the immunology field. Check out this year’s honorees: https://bit.ly/DFAAI2026. #DFAAI #Immunology #ScienceExcellence

Jonathan Kagan @jkagan1.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A fantastic innate immunity conference coming soon. Join us! youtu.be/xmQv36uYm7s?...

Innate Immunity Meeting Promo

YouTube video by KeystoneSymposia

youtu.be

Sri Narasimhan @snarasimhan.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Cell is hiring! Do you have a background in #neuroscience or #immunology? Better still, #neuroimmunology? Cell has an opening for a full-time scientific editor. Role will be based out of any one of our offices in Medford, MA, UK, Spain, Netherlands, China tinyurl.com/4ma236xn @cp-cell.bsky.social

Scientific Editor, Cell

Cell has an opening for a full-time scientific editor. If you are a passionate, mission-driven team player who loves thinking broadly about science and wants to have a positive impact, we invite you t...

nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com

Sri Narasimhan @snarasimhan.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Today at Cell: A new #HallmarksofCancer review by Doug Hanahan: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... This review marks 25 years since the original seminal Cell review by Hanahan & Robert Weinberg and its impactful follow up in 2011. @cp-cell.bsky.social @cellpress.bsky.social

Hallmarks of cancer—Then and now, and beyond

Hanahan revisits the evolving framework of cancer hallmarks, synthesizing 25 years of conceptual refinement into a multidimensional view of tumor biology. This review highlights how aberrant capabilit...

cell.com

Keystone Symposia @keystonesymposia.bsky.social · 7mo ago

🎓 Early-career scientists - don’t miss out! Register by Jan 21 (11:59 PM MST) for the joint Keystone Symposia on Innate Immunity & Aging. Save $250 and attend two meetings for the price of one. 🔗 keysym.us/KSInnateImmu... 🔗 keysym.us/KSAging26 @jkagan1.bsky.social #KSInnateImmune26 #KSAging26

Kevin Bonham @kevinbonham.com · 7mo ago

Been hearing some horrifying chatter about dealing with the new #NIH common form and #ScienCV system, so I put together a short video with some tricks for mitigating some of those pain points. Hope it helps? 🧪 open.substack.com/pub/emptymod...

Dealing with ScienCV formatting

Some tips for composing and making your new NIH biosketch not look like garbage

open.substack.com

The American Association of Immunologists @aai.org · 7mo ago

What goes into planning the world's largest all-immunology event? Join AAI President Dr. Uli von Andrian and Program Chair Dr. Shekhar Pasare for a preview of #IMMUNOLOGY2026™! 🧬 Presidential Symposium 🔬 Special Sessions 🎓 Trainee Programs 🔗 immunology2026.aai.org

Home - IMMUNOLOGY2026™

IMMUNOLOGY2026™ is the 109th annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists, April 15-19, 2026 in Boston, MA.

immunology2026.aai.org

Immunology Podcast@immunologypodcast.com · 7mo ago

🎉 We're back with our first episode of 2026! Drs. Ulrich von Andrian and Shekhar Pasare from @aai.org discuss what to expect at #IMMUNOLOGY2026™! Listen now: https://bit.ly/3ZgtkGo

Ivan Zanoni @lozanzi.bsky.social · 7mo ago

#CyclopsPower👁️ Lu, Choi, Huh &co describe @cp-cell.bsky.social a new reporter system to detect cells that respond to a cytokine & utilize it to identify ileal epithelial cells that respond to IL17 or IFNg responsive CD8 T cell within tumors which are hypofunctional!

In vivo detection of immune responses via cytokine activity labeling

While much is known about the identity and regulation of cytokine-producing cells, the cell types that respond to cytokines remain largely uncharacter…

sciencedirect.com

Ivan Zanoni @lozanzi.bsky.social · 7mo ago

💥New paper alert!💥 What’s better than starting 2026 with an @annualreviews.bsky.social #Immunology, often a once-in-a-life honor ❤️?! Check it out if you want to know everything about type III interferons #IFN! Thanks to my wonderful team for their amazing work 🤗 doi.org/10.1146/annu...

Molecular, Cellular, Tissue, and Organismal Functions of Type III Interferons

Type III interferons are essential immune mediators playing pleiotropic roles during health and disease. In this review, we highlight the molecular and cellular pathways that lead to the production of...

doi.org