Marcus Clark
University of Chicago, IL·Microbiology & Immunology
Immune cells must balance two risky jobs. B cells, which make antibodies, have to cut and mutate their own antibody genes to create diversity, and they also have to multiply.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
B cells
B cell development
germinal center
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Define BRWD1's functions in germinal center B cells and test whether they depend on its conversion of static cohesin to dynamic, DNA-looping cohesin, using Brwd1 deletion.
- Determine how BRWD1 recognizes GAGA DNA motifs and whether this recognition is needed for BRWD1 binding to chromatin and for chromatin remodeling.
- Test whether the DNA-binding protein CTCF assembles BRWD1 with cohesin at TAD boundaries to drive cohesin conversion.
- Identify in situ T cell and myeloid cell arrangements that predict therapy-resistant, progressive human lupus nephritis, using high-dimensional confocal microscopy and AI-driven image analysis.
- Quantify T cell and myeloid states in mouse lupus nephritis models to find which ones reproduce human pathogenic patterns, including CD8+ T cell clonal expansion and myeloid subsets linked to fibrosis.
More about the research
If the two jobs overlap, the cell's DNA can become unstable and leukemia can result. In autoimmune disease, immune cells attack the body's own tissues; in lupus they often damage the kidney. The lab studies how gene folding controls B-cell development, and how the arrangement of immune cells inside diseased kidneys predicts outcomes.
Why it matters
Fewer than half of patients with lupus nephritis achieve complete remission, and doctors cannot currently predict who will progress to kidney failure. Identifying immune patterns in biopsies that predict progression could improve prognosis. Matching mouse models to specific human disease mechanisms could make preclinical drug testing more predictive. The BRWD1 work explains how chromatin folding keeps B-cell development orderly and avoids changes that can lead to leukemia.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Irene Chernova
Yale University, CT·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Determine which cell death pathways B cells from lupus-prone versus healthy mice undergo when exposed to high sodium outside the body, and how the sodium-potassium pump (NKA) protects them.
Todd Waldman
Georgetown University, DC·Genetics
Determine how STAG2-regulated chromatin loops, especially those anchored by CTCF and H3K27me3, control nearby gene expression in glioblastoma cells and tumors, using Hi-C, RNA-seq and the HiCorr/DeepLoop loop-detection pipelines.
Uttiya Basu
Columbia University, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether B cell development can be rescued in RNA exosome-deficient mice, and whether VDJ-carRNAs, chromatin-associated RNAs from the IgH locus, control VDJ recombination efficiency by the RAG enzymes.
The school
University of Chicago: 39 labs on PI Pages, $681M a year on research, 457 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.