Emilie Ronin PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Tang lab, has been awarded a JDRF Advanced Postdoctoral Fellowship in "Engineering regulatory T cells for type 1 diabetes immunotherapy." The fellowship is designed to attract qualified and promising health scientists, to provide an opportunity to receive full time research training, and to assist these promising individuals in transitioning from a fellowship to an independent faculty-level position.
Dr. Ronin’s research will focus on improving regulatory T-cell (Treg) specificity and function for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Particularly, she will take advantage of synthetic biology tools to express T cell receptors on Tregs to enhance their targeting to the insulin-producing beta cells. Additionally, to help Treg counteract inflammation, Dr. Ronin will reinforce Tregs with anti-inflammatory properties enhance their efficacy in protecting pancreatic islets from immune attacks.
JDRF envisions the 3-year award term as a period in which fellows will receive critical research training that will position them to work at the leading edge of their chosen field. An additional, optional 1-year transition award will further assist fellows to proceed to independent faculty or research appointments and will serve as a bridge between the fellowship and independent competitive research funding.
JDRF is building towards a future without Type 1 Diabetes by funding and advocating for breakthrough scientific research by helping promising scientists establish careers in the field of T1D research. Meet the future of T1D research.