Team

Welcome to the Kohlgruber Lab! Our team brings together experts in cellular and molecular immunology, functional genomics, and clinical medicine to tackle high-impact translational questions.

Principal Investigator

Ayano Kohlgruber, PhD

Ayano.Kohlgruber@childrens.harvard.edu

Ayano Kohlgruber is an immunologist whose work focuses on understanding how T cells recognize antigen and how immune specificity shapes health and disease. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she first fell in love with immunology. She went on to earn her PhD at Harvard, where she trained with Drs. Michael Brenner and Lydia Lynch, studying γδ T cells and their role in metabolic homeostasis in adipose tissue. She then joined Dr. Steve Elledge’s laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow, where she developed new tools to profile T cell specificities at scale. Ayano leads a team of incredible scientists to tackle the antigen-specific basis of immunity across autoimmunity, cancer, and infectious disease. Her group combines functional genomics, single-cell technologies, and synthetic biology to define T cell specificities and understand how they become altered in disease. She cares deeply about mentorship and building a collaborative lab environment that brings together trainees to answer basic immunology, technology development, and translational questions.

Outside the lab: Outside the lab, Ayano can usually be found adventuring outdoors with her husband (Rob), son (Haruto), and two dogs (Murphy & Elsa), whether hiking, backpacking, (backcountry/cross-country) skiing, (canoe) camping, climbing, or running. These days, her main venue for experimentation is the kitchen, where she loves hosting dinner parties and cooking/baking foods inspired by cuisines from around the world.

Chinky Liu, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Chinky.Liu@childrens.harvard.edu

Chinky Liu

Postdoctoral Fellow

Chinky is an immunologist with a deep fascination for T cells and is currently trying to understand how antigen-specific T cell response drive autoimmune inflammation. She’s excited to keep growing in immunology while building stronger skills in computational biology and data analysis. Outside the lab, you’ll probably find her reading or happily hunting for Indian food— Kolkata-style chicken biryani is a forever favorite!

Jayashree Vijaya Raghavan, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Jayashree.VR@childrens.harvard.edu

Jayashree Vijaya Raghavan

Postdoctoral Fellow

Jayashree is a bioengineer by training interested in interdisciplinary and translational immuno-engineering research. She loves to explore the application of data science and AI tools to immunology to understand immune system at the systemic level in diseased states. Outside of lab, Jayashree enjoys cooking, gardening, yoga, hiking, impromptu travels, adventurous activities, and many more on the endless fun list!

Benjamin Goldberg

Graduate Student (HMS Virology)

Ben.Goldberg2@childrens.harvard.edu

Benjamin Goldberg

Graduate Student (HMS Virology)

Before enrolling in the Harvard Virology PhD program, Ben attended Bates College, studying Biology and Chemistry. After graduating, Ben worked as a research technician in the Gaiha lab, designing, producing, testing, and evaluating CD8+ T cell vaccines for SIV, HIV, and SARS-CoV-2, aiding in their transition to animal and human clinical trials. Now, in the Kohlgruber lab, Ben studies T cell immunity in Epstein-Barr virus and works to discover uncharacterized antigens which contribute to T cell immunity and associated pathology/disease.

Lorena Bergstrom

Rotation Student (HMS Immunology)

Lorena Bergstrom

Rotation Student (HMS Immunology)

Coming soon!

Allison Steedman

Rotation Student (HMS Virology)

Allison.Steedman@childrens.harvard.edu

Allison Steedman

Rotation Student (HMS Virology)

Allison went to the University of Arizona where she got her Bachelors in Biochemistry before starting in the Harvard Virology program. Outside of her love for studying host-pathogen interactions in the lab, Allison loves to watercolor, read, bake, and hike!

David Cruz Walma, DPhil

DMSc Student (Harvard School of Dental Medicine)

david_cruzwalma@hsdm.harvard.edu

David Cruz Walma, DPhil

DMSc Student (Harvard School of Dental Medicine)

Coming soon!

Alicia Padilla-Aguilar

Research Assistant

Alicia.PadillaAguilar@childrens.harvard.edu

Alicia Padilla-Aguilar

Research Assistant

Alicia graduated from Wellesley College where she majored in Biochemistry. She is a research assistant at the Kohlgruber Lab. In the lab Alicia engineers immortalized cell lines to act as antigen presenting cells and present post-translationally modified peptides to T cells. She intends to pursue an MD/PhD and continue learning about our immune system. Her favorite cell is a macrophage because it eats a lot!

Shilu Wang

Undergraduate Intern

Shilu.Wang@childrens.harvard.edu

Shilu Wang

Undergraduate Intern

Shilu is a current undergrad intern from Northeastern University majoring in Bioengineering and Biochemistry. She is currently learning about different lab techniques, T-cells, and gaining experience in the lab under her mentor, Alicia. Fun fact: As a kid she would watch how spiders spin their webs and eat their prey. So it's pretty safe to say that Shilu doesn't have Arachnophobia!

Alumni

We are proud of all our past trainees and the paths they have taken.

Name	Position Held	Currently
Ebubechukwu Emuka	Dana Farber Cancer Institute CURE program summer intern	Bowie State University undergraduate