Lauren Ehrlich, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Her lab studies the cellular and molecular interactions between developing thymocytes and surrounding stromal cells in the thymus that promote generation of diverse, self-tolerant, and non-malignant T cells.

To do this, the Ehrlich lab uses a combination of genetic tools, immunological techniques, transcriptional profiling, and 2-photon live-cell microscopy. Two major objectives are to elucidate the contribution of chemokine receptors to central tolerance induction and to determine how cells in the tumor microenvironment support growth of the pediatric malignancy T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

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Lauren Ehrlich, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Her lab studies the cellular and molecular interactions between developing thymocytes and surrounding stromal cells in the thymus that promote generation of diverse, self-tolerant, and non-malignant T cells.

To do this, the Ehrlich lab uses a combination of genetic tools, immunological techniques, transcriptional profiling, and 2-photon live-cell microscopy. Two major objectives are to elucidate the contribution of chemokine receptors to central tolerance induction and to determine how cells in the tumor microenvironment support growth of the pediatric malignancy T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The ultimate goal of Dr. Ehrlich’s research is to elucidate mechanisms underlying autoimmunity and cancer to develop improved therapies.

Dr. Ehrlich earned her B.S. in Biology at Yale University and her Ph.D. in Immunology at Stanford University, where she carried out her thesis work in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Davis on formation of the immunological synapse during thymocyte selection and T cell activation.

She completed postdoctoral fellowships in Immunology at UCSF and Stanford University, under the supervision of Drs. Lewis Lanier and Irving Weissman, respectively, where she studied T cell co-stimulation, and identified hematopoietic progenitors that seeded the thymus to initiate T cell development. Notably, during this time, she developed a 2-photon microscopy approach to study interactions between thymocyte subsets and stromal cells in a live thymic environment.

Dr. Ehrlich was recruited to Texas as the University of Texas at Austin’s first CPRIT scholar.

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