Steiner Lab

The long-term interest of our lab has been the evolution and development of the immune system. Our current goal is to understand the early development of cells in the lymphocytic lineage and of the organs in which these cells differentiate. Despite a wealth of information about later stages, little is known about early steps in the differentiation of lymphocytes and the thymic primordium, including commitment to the lymphocytic lineages and homing of lymphocytic progenitors to the thymus. We have developed a visual assay for formation of the thymus, which we are currently using to screen mutagenized fish for defects in thymus and thymocyte development. In addition, we are investigating the genomics structure of immunoglobulin genes as well as the changes involved in the formation of the mature adaptive immune system, more specifically V(D)J recombination and somatic hypermutation and their regulation during development.