Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv

Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv

Assistant Professor, Department of Systems Biology

210 Longwood Avenue
Armenise Building, Room 555
Boston, MA 02115

Email: Jennifer_Oyler-Yaniv@hms.harvard.edu; alon_oyler-yaniv@hms.harvard.edu

Research Summary:

How does the immune system maintain tissue integrity and function while clearing pathogens? The air we breathe is teeming with bacteria and fungi, our skin and mucosal surfaces are home to trillions of bacteria, and our genome is littered with the remnants of countless viral infections. Our immune system must sift through this onslaught to respond to true threats in a manner that is tailored to the specific pathogen type and magnitude. Failure to clear a pathogen means the spread of infection, but overreaction leads to immune-driven tissue destruction, inflammatory disease, and fibrosis. Shockingly, the immune system only rarely fails.

We are obsessed with understanding this fine balance at the molecular, cellular, and whole organ scales. By exploring the feedbacks between the host and pathogen, which exist at multiple scales, we seek answers to these questions. We believe quantitative questions call for quantitative solutions, so we blend methods and concepts from classical immunology and host-pathogen interactions, with biophysics, systems biology, and machine learning. We like to follow questions across multiple scales, often starting at the single cell level and ending at whole organisms that we explore using light-sheet microscopy.

Publications:

TNF controls a speed-accuracy tradeoff in apoptotic decision to restrict viral spread. Jennifer Oyler- Yaniv*, Alon Oyler-Yaniv*, Evan Maltz, and Roy Wollman, 2021, Nature Communications, 12 (2992). 

Catch-and-release signaling enables long-term gene expression changes in response to transient inflammatory stimulus.Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv, Alon Oyler-Yaniv, Mojdeh Shakiba, Nina K. Min, Oleg Krichevsky, Nihal Altan-Bonnet, and Grégoire Altan-Bonnet, 2017 Molecular Cell, 66 (5), 635-647.

A tunable diffusion-consumption mechanism allows plasticity in cell-to-cell communication in the immune system.Alon Oyler-Yaniv, Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv, Benjamin M. Whitlock, Zhiduo Liu, Ronald N. Germain, Morgan Huse, Grégoire Altan-Bonnet, and Oleg Krichevsky, 2017 Immunity, 46, 4, 609-620.

Scanning fluorescence correlation spectroscopy as a versatile tool to measure static and dynamic properties of soft matter systems.Manish Nepal*, Alon Oyler-Yaniv*, and Oleg Krichevsky, 2015 Soft Matter, 11, 8939-8947.

A small-molecule c-Rel inhibitor reduces alloactivation of T cells without compromising antitumor activity.Yusuke Shono, Andrea Z Tuckett, Samedy Ouk, Hsiou-Chi Liou, Grégoire Altan-Bonnet, Jennifer J. Tsai, Jennifer E. Oyler, Odette M. Smith, Mallory L. West, Natalie V. Singer, Ekaterina Doubrovina, Dmitry Pankov, Chandresh V. Undhad, George F. Murphy, Cecilia Lezcano, Chen Liu, Richard J. O’Reilly, Marcel RM van den Brink, Johannes L. Zakrzewski, 2014 Cancer Discovery, 4(5) 578-591.

Structure of DNA Coils in Dilute and Semidilute Solutions.Manish Nepal, Alon Yaniv, Eyal Shafran, and Oleg Krichevsky, 2013 Physical Review Letters 110, 058102.

Convergent evolution of hyperswarming leads to impaired biofilm formation in pathogenic bacteria. Dave Van Ditmarsch, Kerry E. Boyle, Hassan Sakhtah, Jennifer E. Oyler, Carey D. Nadell, Éric Déziel, Lars E.P. Dietrich, and Joao B. Xavier, 2013 Cell Reports, 4(4), 697-708.

Interaction of lipocalin 2, transferrin, and siderophores determines the replicative niche of Klebsiella pneumoniae during pneumonia. Michael A. Bachman, Steven Lenio, Lindsay Schmidt, Jennifer E. Oyler, and Jeffrey N. Weiser, 2012 mBio, 3(6).

Klebsiella pneumoniae yersiniabactin promotes respiratory tract infection through evasion of lipocalin 2. Michael A. Bachman, Jennifer E. Oyler, Samuel H. Burns, Mélissa Caza François Lépine, Charles M. Dozois, and Jeffrey N. Weiser, 2011 Infection and Immunity, 79(8) 3309-3316.

Marginal Nature of DNA Solutions.Eyal Shafran, Alon Yaniv, and Oleg Krichevsky, 2010, Physical Review Letters 104, 128101.