Wagar Lab (University of California, Irvine)
The Wagar Lab at UC Irvine investigates the initiation, regulation, and resolution of human immune responses to infectious diseases and vaccines, with a focus on lymphoid and mucosal tissues. Their mission is to accelerate vaccine and immunotherapy design by understanding and manipulating the specialized immune microenvironments in human tissues. Using innovative immune organoid models, the lab aims to improve translational vaccine studies, enable novel mechanistic experiments, and explore genetic and environmental contributions to immune variation, particularly in the context of respiratory infections.
Wagar Lab (University of California, Irvine)
Wagar lab Falling Leaves Building, rm 2131 847 Health Sciences Quad Irvine CA 92697 United States
What We Do
A novel model composed of primary human lymphoid and mucosal tissues, enabling translational vaccine studies, mechanistic experiments with human samples, and investigation of inter-individual immune variation.
Projects focused on predicting host and antigen factors contributing to immunogenicity using human immune organoids.
Research on the influence of immune aging and adjuvant effects on vaccine protection and durability.
Elucidating the effects of immune therapeutics in normal and tumor organoids, including checkpoint blockade therapies.
Understanding differences in adaptive immunity and immune repertoires between tissues and the periphery.
Developing and testing new vaccine designs to protect against pathogens lacking effective vaccines.
Application Area
Key People
Assistant Professor, Principal Investigator
Postdoctoral Fellow
Bioinformatics Programmer
Postdoctoral Scholar
Postdoctoral Scholar
Postdoctoral Fellow
News & Updates
Suhas Sureshchandra and Patricia Román-Carrasco received the AAI Trainee Abstract Award for oral presentations at the AAI conference.
Erika, Evien, and Haven received CALIT2 x UROP funding for their interdisciplinary team project.
Mahina Mitul and Erika Joloya received T32 fellowship support through the Institute for Immunology.
Mahina Mitul won the Excellent in Research Award from the Physiology & Biophysics department for her work on sex differences in human tissue immunity.
Mahina Mitul and Zach Wagoner were awarded for their contributions to the UCI annual immunology symposium.
A study identifying host-specific correlates of protection to different influenza vaccines using human immune organoids.
Research on sex differences in immune cell composition and function across tissues and ages.
Development of a human lymphoma organoid model for studying and targeting the tumor immune microenvironment.
Review on the use of human immune organoids to inform rational vaccine design.
Overview of human immune organoids as a tool for studying vaccine responses.
Influenza vaccine format mediates distinct cellular and antibody responses in human immune organoids
Study showing how influenza vaccine format affects cellular and antibody responses in human immune organoids.
Commentary on immune microenvironments.
Describes the use of tonsil organoids to model human adaptive immune responses.
Study on progenitor identification and SARS-CoV-2 infection in human distal lung organoids.
Presents a multi-omic single-cell atlas of human B cell identity.
Describes a deep learning approach to predicting HLA class II antigen presentation.
Increased T Cell Differentiation and Cytolytic Function in Bangladeshi Compared to American Children
Compares T cell differentiation and function in Bangladeshi and American children.
Study on how environmental factors and infectious disease shape infant B cell receptor repertoires.
Describes a method for live cell barcoding in mass cytometry.
Review of advanced model systems and tools for human immunology.
Study on phenotypic mapping of human dendritic cells.
Research on the role of 4-1BB signals in tissue-resident memory CD8 T-cell populations.
Study on identifying specificity groups in the T cell receptor repertoire.
Research on antigen presentation profiling in lymphoma.
Study on T memory cell differentiation after Varicella Zoster vaccination in older individuals.
Study on immunity to H1N1 influenza post-pandemic.
Research on influenza-specific T cells in older people and vaccine response.
Celebration of Mahina Mitul's successful PhD defense and her contributions to the lab.
Sam Kim and Mariam Mohagheghi officially joined the lab for their graduate studies in Spring.
Erika, Evien, and Haven completed their CALIT2 project and presented at the annual CALIT2 symposium.
Suhas and Patricia received the AAI Trainee Abstract Award for oral presentations at the AAI conference in Honolulu. Mahina also received an Abstract Award and presented posters.
Zach and Tim, with the team, identified novel correlates of neutralizing antibody responses to flu vaccine, validating predictors from organoids in vivo.
Erika, Evien, and Haven received CALIT2 x UROP funding for their team project, awarded to undergraduate interdisciplinary research teams led by a graduate student.
Mahina and Erika received T32 fellowship support; Mahina and Zach were awarded for contributions to the UCI annual immunology symposium.
Dr. Katrina Evans joined the lab to work on novel vaccine formulations and mechanistic studies in immune organoids.
Mahina Mitul published her first, first-author paper on sex differences in human tissue immunity in Frontiers in Immunology and won the Excellent in Research Award.
Jenna Kastenschmidt and Joe Schroers-Martin published a paper on creating primary human follicular lymphomas and testing immunotherapies in vitro, in collaboration with the Alizadeh lab.
Postdoc Jenna Kastenschmidt moved to Basel, Switzerland for a Senior Scientist position at Roche.