Overview of the lab

We are developing and implementing single-cell 'omics' strategies and systems immunology approaches to understand the players and rules governing human immune response regulation as a foundation for deciphering human traits and diseases.

The Villani Laboratory seeks to establish a comprehensive roadmap of the human immune system by achieving a higher resolution definition and functional characterization of cell subsets and rules governing immune response regulation, as a foundation to decipher how immunity is dysregulated in diseases.

To study and model the immune system as a function of “healthy” and inflammatory states, disease progression, and response to treatment, we use:

• unbiased systems immunology approaches
• cutting edge immunogenomics
• single-cell ‘multi-omics’ strategies
• integrative computational frameworks

Our multi-disciplinary team of immunologists, geneticists, computational biologists, and physicians work towards answering several key questions:

• Do we know all existing blood immune cell subsets?
• How do circulating immune cells mirror those in tissue microenvironment in the context of health and disease?
• Can we identify targets that would improve immunotherapy efficacy by increasing specificity?

Collectively, our groundwork is paving the way for developing a human immune lexicon that is key to promoting effective bench-to-beside translation of findings.