In addition to serving as the R.C. Schneider Collegiate Professor of Neurosurgery, Dr. Castro is a Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan. Her work focuses on understanding the role of oncometabolites and the tumor - immune microenvironment. In particular, she is interested in the impacts of the tumor-immune microenvironment on tumor progression, immune cell migration and response to therapeutics.

Dr. Schultz-Cherry serves as the Deputy Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Influenza Collaborating Center, Co-Director for the NIAID-funded Center for Excellence in Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS) and Co-Director for the NIAID-funded Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Center (CIVIC).

Dr. Lipchik received his doctorate from Purdue University in 2013. Following his graduate work, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Michael Snyder at Stanford University, where he has focused on understanding the interactions between the immune system and glucose metabolism. His work has identified Immunoglobulin G (IgG) and the neonatal Fc receptor, FcRn, as a critical molecular link between inflammation and the pathogenesis of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Lipchik has extended this paradigm to demonstrated the potential of IgG as a therapeutic to improve insulin sensitivity. He will be continuing this work at Wayne State in the Department of Pharmaceutical Science, where he’ll be joining as an assistant professor this summer.

Nucleus accumbens-associated protein-1, NAC1, is part of the BTB/POZ family of nuclear factors and is a transcriptional repressor. NAC1 has been shown to play a role in cancer, particularly in intratumoral responses to hypoxia and in the promotion of glycolysis. Dr. Song’s work is currently focused on the role of NAC1 in intratumoral immunity and T cell reprogramming.

Dr. Song developed his expertise in T cell biology during his training with Dr. Michael Croft at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology and built on his success there as an Assistant Professor, then Associate Professor at Penn State. In addition to over 70 publications, Dr. Song has authored several book chapters focused on regulatory T cells and cancer. He was awarded the Woodward Education Scholar Award, numerous Travel Grants and currently has funding through NIAID and the NCI to support his work on Treg in autoimmune arthritis as well as the role of NAC1-mediated suppression of anti-tumor immunity.