Yousuke Takahama, Ph.D.

The questions we would like to address in the next few years include how cortical and medullary microenvironments in the thymus positively and negatively select functionally potent and self-tolerant T cell repertoire. We would also like to study the mechanisms involved in how diverse microenvironments are formed in the thymus to shape T cell repertoire and how multiple thymic microenvironments sequentially guide to position developing T cells for their repertoire formation.

Yousuke Takahama received his Ph.D. from Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan. He was a visiting fellow and visiting associate in the Experimental Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, where he studied thymocyte development and selection. He then started working on the biology of thymic microenvironments at Syntex Institute of Immunology and the University of Tsukuba in Japan. In 1999, he was appointed a Professor of Experimental Immunology, University of Tokushima. In 2018, he moved back to the United States to establish a new laboratory as a Senior Investigator in Experimental Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute. He is a founding organizer of the Global Thymus Network. His main interests are the development and function of the thymus and thymic epithelial cells, especially with regard to the repertoire selection of T lymphocytes.