Savas Tay
University of Chicago, IL·Biomedical Engineering
Cells constantly sense their surroundings and talk to one another, even in noisy, changing environments. How do individual cells turn signals such as an infection or stress into the right response?
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Microbiology & Immunology
Biophysics
- Topics
cell signaling
single-cell analysis
NF-κB
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Feb 2028
What they work on
- Determine how sentinel cells encode information about pathogens and stress in cytokine dynamics, including memory of prior stimuli and causes of cytokine overproduction, using single-cell secretion assays and live-cell analysis.
- Test how the inflammatory pathway NF-κB processes combinations, sequences and rising, falling or oscillating cytokine inputs, and how it decodes signals spreading across space to control gene expression.
- Build microfluidic systems that culture and track single cells under controlled dynamic signals and measure secreted proteins over time, plus software for image segmentation and cell tracking.
- Optimize iProx-seq, which uses DNA-barcoded proximity probes and single-cell sequencing to measure proteins, protein complexes and mRNA together in thousands of individual cells.
- Map how NF-κB, MAPK, PI3K and IRF3 networks change as hematopoietic stem cells develop, and why single macrophages differ in sensitivity to inflammatory TLR signals.
- Define the protein and signaling states of germinal center B cells and how protein networks regulate their differentiation, combining iProx-seq, live-cell imaging and mathematical modeling.
More about the research
Answering this matters for understanding infection, autoimmunity, sepsis and cancer. Two linked projects study this question in immune cells. They combine live-cell experiments and mathematical modeling with new single-cell technologies. One project asks how cells encode and decode signals over time and space. The other builds a method to measure proteins and their partnerships inside thousands of single cells and applies it to immune development.
Why it matters
Accurate models of how immune cells process signals could guide better therapies for infection, autoimmunity, sepsis and cancer, including insight into how drug resistance emerges. The single-cell tools developed here could give immunology, development and cancer researchers practical ways to measure proteins, protein complexes and gene activity together in thousands of individual cells.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Understanding robust cellular information processing in complex environments and development of enabling single-cell analysis technologies
NIH · Mar 2023 – Feb 2028
Comprehensive characterization of immune signaling networks in single-cells by joint quantification of proteins, protein complexes and mRNA
NIH · Feb 2023 – Jan 2028
Closest labs
Andrew Paek
University of Arizona, AZ·Biochemistry
Identify proteins directly oxidized by high doses of H2O2 that switch on Group 2 stress proteins (FOXO1, NF-κB, GCN2) and block Group 1 proteins (p53, NRF2, AKT), using a targeted approach in human cells.
John G. Albeck
University of California-Davis, CA·Biology
Use multiplexed live-cell sensors to constrain mathematical models of how glycolysis rates vary across single cells, and identify the smallest, most informative set of measurements.
Steven Zvi Josefowicz
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether H3.3 dosage tunes inflammatory gene transcription, immune cell function and pathogen control, using mice with 0–4 copies of H3f3a/H3f3b, mixed bone marrow chimeras and Listeria, Aspergillus and Plasmodium infections.
The school
University of Chicago: 39 labs on PI Pages, $681M a year on research, 457 research doctorates a year.
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