In the body, immune cells communicate through signaling molecules called cytokines and chemokines to coordinate immune responses. Cytokines and chemokines are particularly important to recruit and organize immune cells in the tumor microenvironment as well as regulate their activity. Dr. Ang Cui is developing next-generation computation tools to decode the immune system’s complex messaging system and enable data-driven approaches for new drug development.

Dr. Cui recently created an interactive online dictionary that provides information about how immune cells respond to different cytokines, specifically what genes are turned on or off in cells. In this project, her team will add to the dictionary information about how chemokines influence immune cells. Her team will also use the companion software they developed, called Immune Response Enrichment Analysis (IREA), to predict key chemokine activities from tumor mRNA data.

By building open access, user-friendly tools that can read and interpret chemokine-driven immune responses, Dr. Cui will help accelerate discoveries in cancer biology and immune regulation. Her work will provide critical insights and enable a more accurate and efficient understanding of how cells communicate to fight cancer.

Research Focus

Cancer biology, cell communication, chemokines

Projects and Grants

Computational tools for analyzing chemokine network in tumor transcriptomic data