Bio

Tanya's interests span across studying G-Protein Coupled Receptors and the biochemistry of membrane proteins. During her doctoral studies, she worked as a visiting researcher at the National Research Council of Canada, Ottawa (Sussex laboratories) from 2019-2023 uncovering the role of an ancient mating receptor Ste3 in microbial pathogenesis and chemotropism. During her current position at Butcher lab, she is using High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms to guide her search for interesting ligand-receptor interactions. This involves using a combination of computation tools, cell based and analytical chemistry techniques for discovery and validation phase respectively.
Outside of science, she is an avid musician and a singer.

Professional Education

  • PhD, University of Ottawa, Chemistry (2023)

Stanford Advisors

Contact

  • Academic
    tanyash@stanford.edu
    University - Scholar Department: Pathology Position: Postdoctoral Scholar

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 5324

All Publications

  • A lymphocyte chemoaffinity axis for lung, non-intestinal mucosae and CNS. Nature Ocón, B., Xiang, M., Bi, Y., Tan, S., Brulois, K., Ayesha, A., Kunte, M., Zhou, C., LaJevic, M., Lazarus, N., Mengoni, F., Sharma, T., Montgomery, S., Hooper, J. E., Huang, M., Handel, T., Dawson, J. R., Kufareva, I., Zabel, B. A., Pan, J., Butcher, E. C. 2024

    Abstract

    Tissue-selective chemoattractants direct lymphocytes to epithelial surfaces to establish local immune environments, regulate immune responses to food antigens and commensal organisms, and protect from pathogens. Homeostatic chemoattractants for small intestines, colon, and skin are known1 2, but chemotropic mechanisms selective for respiratory tract and other non-intestinal mucosal tissues (NIMT) remain poorly understood. Here we leveraged diverse omics datasets to identify GPR25 as a lymphocyte receptor for CXCL17, a chemoattractant cytokine whose expression by epithelial cells of airways, upper gastrointestinal and squamous mucosae unifies the NIMT and distinguishes them from intestinal mucosae. Single-cell transcriptomic analyses show that GPR25 is induced on innate lymphocytes prior to emigration to the periphery, and is imprinted in secondary lymphoid tissues on activated B and T cells responding to immune challenge. GPR25 characterizes B and T tissue resident memory and regulatory T lymphocytes in NIMT and lungs in humans and mediates lymphocyte homing to barrier epithelia of the airways, oral cavity, stomach, biliary and genitourinary tracts in mouse models. GPR25 is also expressed by T cells in cerebrospinal fluid and CXCL17 by neurons, suggesting a role in CNS immune regulation. We reveal widespread imprinting of GPR25 on regulatory T cells, suggesting a mechanistic link to population genetic evidence that GPR25 is protective in autoimmunity3,4. Our results define a GPR25-CXCL17 chemoaffinity axis with the potential to integrate immunity and tolerance at non-intestinal mucosae and the CNS.

    View details for DOI 10.1038/s41586-024-08043-2

    View details for PubMedID 39293486