Jenny Ting
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Primary Section: 43, Immunology and Inflammation Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2022)
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Biosketch
Jenny Ting is a molecular immunologist who is known for her work in innate immunity, neuro-inflammation, cancer, autoimmunity and viral-immunology. She is particularly known for identifying the mammalian NLR (nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat containing proteins or NOD-like receptor) family and the broad functions mediated by this family. Ting was born in Taipei, Taiwan and spent her childhood in Taipei, Bangkok and Manila before coming to the USA. She graduated from Illinois State University with a B.S. in Medical Technology, followed by a Ph.D. in Microbiology-Immunology from Northwestern University. She did her postdoctoral training at the University of Southern California and Duke University, followed by a faculty position at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. She has been President of the American Association of Immunologists, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Academia Sinica.
Research Interests
Jenny Ting’s laboratory is interested in the roles of innate immune receptors in inflammation, cancer, infectious diseases and the microbiota. Her early work spanned the then-nascent fields of neuro-inflammation and class II major histocompatibility (MHC-II) gene transcription. She identified the expression and function of class II major histocompatibility (MHC-II) antigens in neurologic diseases and showed that TNF-receptors have both reparative and detrimental roles in demyelinating diseases. Her group defined the MHC-II DRA promoter and studied the master MHC-II transcriptional activator, CIITA. Based on the homology to CIITA, her group reported on a 22-member family of mammalian innate immune receptors/sensors, known as the NLR (nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich repeat containing proteins) family. She published extensively on the function of NLRs in the inflammasome pathway. She also identified NLRs that serve as negative regulators of cell signaling and as nucleic acid receptors. Finally, she identified innate immune receptors that have intrinsic functions in T and B cells to modulate adaptive immunity in autoimmune disorders and cancers. She has worked with others to develop technology to deliver innate immune ligands as vaccine adjuvants against cancer and viruses. More recently her group has identified microbiota that can mitigate inflammation, metabolic diseases and radiation sickness.
