Kong Chen, PhD

  • Assistant Professor
  • Department of Medicine

Education & Training

  • Postdoctoral, Louisiana Stat University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 2011
  • PhD, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA, 2008
  • BS, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 2000

Research Interest Summary

Primary research focuses on studying memory Th17 responses using mouse models of Klebsiella pneumoniae, P. aeruginosa, and Rhesus macaque models of SIV and Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Research Interests

Using the K. pneumoniae model, we have demonstrated that immunization induced memory Th17 cells provide serotype/antibody independent protection against a variety of strains of K. pneumoniae including the recently described multidrug resistant New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase strain. The data suggesting Th17 cells can provide clade specific immune protection regardless of capsular serotypes. Recently, we have also demonstrated that P. aeruginosa antigen inducible proliferation of Th17 with memory cell characteristics is observed in the mediastinal lymph nodes of patients with chronic lung inflammation such as Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Enhanced Th17 responses seem to be responsible for the neutrophilic pathology observed in CF as well as patients with other chronic lung inflammations. We have found both IL-17A and IL- 17-driven chemokines can be suppressed by epigenetic inhibition in human cells ex vivo as well as mouse models in vivo.

Current Research

  • Defining the epigenetic regulation of IL-17 downstream chemokines specifically produced by epithelial cells in chronic lung inflammations
  •  In depth transcriptomic analyses including Single-Cell RNA-seq in various tissues and samples from patients with chronic lung inflammation as well as mice using experimental lung inflammation models. 
  •  Analyzing the chromatin accessibility landscape in the lung epithelium using an unbiased approach, ATAC-seq.