Chiu Lab
Welcome to the Chiu Lab
The Chiu lab is focused on the neuroimmune mechanisms underlying pain, host defense and neurodegeneration. Our lab is located in the vibrant scientific community at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Immunology. Major goals include uncovering mechanisms underlying: 1) How bacterial pathogens interact with the sensory nervous system to produce pain and itch. 2) How perierpheral neurons crosstalk with immune cells in barrier tissues to regulate immunity (gut-brain-axis, meninges, skin and lung immunity). 3) Role of Gasdermins and inanate immunity in CNS neurodegeneration.
News Stories
Naija's presentation at Synaptogenesis Symposium
Naija Barakat, Chiu lab research assistant and PiNBAC trainee gave a fantastic talk at the 4th annual Synaptogenesis symposium! Thanks to Harvard Brain Science Initiative and HMS Department of Neurobiology for hosting!
Congratulations to Georgia for her paper!
Congratulations to Georgia on her new paper “Gasdermin D is activated but does not drive neurodegeneration in SOD1 model of ALS: Implications for targeting pyroptosis”, published in Neurobiology of Disease! The Chiu lab got together over lunch to...
Jessie's poster presentation at the Harvard immunology summer program
Jessie, who is an undergraduate in the Chiu Lab, presented her poster at the Harvard Immunology Summer Program on August 7th, 2025. We are proud of her hard work and are excited to see her build on this achievement and continue making meaningful...
Congratulations to Nicole for her Science Immunology paper!
Congratulations to Nicole on her new paper on how vagal sensory neurons regulate influenza virus infections, published in Science Immunology! Together, the lab celebrated her great achievement and efforts in driving this project toward publication by...
Naija's poster presentation at NESS
Naija Barakat, our talented PiNBAC trainee presented a poster at New England Science Symposium on March 30th, 2025. It was great seeing all of her hard work in the Chiu lab and we look forward to seeing her continued growth and future contributions to the...
Check out Becca's feature in Emmanuel College's "The Pulse"
An undergraduate student from our lab, Rebecca Markie is featured in an article by Emmanuel College's T he Pulse. Click on the link below to learn more about Becca's work in the Chiu lab and her achievements on campus! https://www.emmanuel.edu/pulse/story...
Celebration for Isaac's recent tenure promotion
We would like to thank the immunology department for organizing a wonderful celebration. We got to see so many impactful people from Isaac's career. Thank you to everyone who came, and congratulations, Professor Chiu!
Congratulations Isaac on Tenure!
Congrats to Dr. Chiu on his promotion to Professor of Immunology! Here's to many more years of productive and impactful research!
Kim and yangyang's paper published today in Science!
We are super excited that Kim Meerschaert and Yangyang Zhu's paper was published today in Science magazine: https://www.science.org/stoken/author-tokens/ST-2027/full. This was a fruitful collaboration between our lab and Dr. Christophe Benoist's lab...
Our Community
Our laboratory is part of a vibrant scientific community at Harvard Medical School within the Department of Immunology. Our lab is located on the 8th floor of the 4 Blackfan Circle Building. We actively participate in several graduate student programs, including the PhD programs in BBS, Neuroscience, and Immunology. We are also members of the Harvard Digestive Disease Center and Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
Recent Publications
2026
Caroline G Kahane, Lise E Nigrovic, Daping Yang, Joseph A Majzoub, Mark D Kellogg, Ron L Kaplan, Andrea T Cruz, Isaac M Chiu, and Todd W Lyons. 2026. “Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide for Identifying Pediatric Bacterial Musculoskeletal Infections: A Prospective, Multicenter Study”. Pediatric Emergency Care. doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/pec.0000000000003520
Caroline G Kahane, Lise E Nigrovic, Daping Yang, Joseph A Majzoub, Mark D Kellogg, Ron L Kaplan, Andrea T Cruz, Isaac M Chiu, and Todd W Lyons. 2026. “Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide for Identifying Pediatric Bacterial Musculoskeletal Infections: A Prospective, Multicenter Study”. Pediatric Emergency Care. doi:https://doi.org/10.1097/pec.0000000000003520
Tiphaine Voisin, Nadine Gheziel, Céline El Samrout, Jérémy Martin, Amyaouch Bradaia, Mircea Iftinca, Manon Defaye, Aude Charron, Nasser S Abdullah, Celia Changenot, Anne-Alicia Gonzalez, Antoine Depluech, Elodie Labit, Nathalie Saint-Laurent, Larissa Staurengo-Ferrari, Ozge Erdogan, Marie Tauber, Alexia Loste, Nadine Serhan, Sara Villa-Hernandez, Isaac M Chiu, Aziz Moqrich, Christophe Altier, Lilian Basso, and Nicolas Gaudenzio. 2026. “Skin Inflammation and Itch Response Are Independently Regulated by Distinct Nociceptor Subsets”. Immunity. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2026.03.020
Tiphaine Voisin, Nadine Gheziel, Céline El Samrout, Jérémy Martin, Amyaouch Bradaia, Mircea Iftinca, Manon Defaye, Aude Charron, Nasser S Abdullah, Celia Changenot, Anne-Alicia Gonzalez, Antoine Depluech, Elodie Labit, Nathalie Saint-Laurent, Larissa Staurengo-Ferrari, Ozge Erdogan, Marie Tauber, Alexia Loste, Nadine Serhan, Sara Villa-Hernandez, Isaac M Chiu, Aziz Moqrich, Christophe Altier, Lilian Basso, and Nicolas Gaudenzio. 2026. “Skin Inflammation and Itch Response Are Independently Regulated by Distinct Nociceptor Subsets”. Immunity. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2026.03.020
Ya-Hsuan Ho, Giacomo Bregni, Marco Stazi, Paola Peinado, Pei-Hsing Chen, Claudio Ballabio, Victoire Boulat, Shree Vadera, Yilin Guan, Zhikai Liu, Alicia Alonso de la Vega, Li Wang, Chao-Chi Ho, Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, Julian Downward, Min-Shu Hsieh, Maksym V. Kopanitsa, George Kassiotis, Christoforos Tsantoulas, Michael S. Schappe, Michael-Bogdan Margineanu, Dinis Pedro Calado, Isaac M. Chiu, Charles Swanton, Jin-Shing Chen, and Leanne Li. 2026. “Nociceptive Innervation Limits Tertiary Lymphoid Structures to Promote Lung Cancer”. Cell. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.04.038
Ya-Hsuan Ho, Giacomo Bregni, Marco Stazi, Paola Peinado, Pei-Hsing Chen, Claudio Ballabio, Victoire Boulat, Shree Vadera, Yilin Guan, Zhikai Liu, Alicia Alonso de la Vega, Li Wang, Chao-Chi Ho, Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, Julian Downward, Min-Shu Hsieh, Maksym V. Kopanitsa, George Kassiotis, Christoforos Tsantoulas, Michael S. Schappe, Michael-Bogdan Margineanu, Dinis Pedro Calado, Isaac M. Chiu, Charles Swanton, Jin-Shing Chen, and Leanne Li. 2026. “Nociceptive Innervation Limits Tertiary Lymphoid Structures to Promote Lung Cancer”. Cell. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2026.04.038
Larissa Staurengo-Ferrari, Calvin Wong, and Isaac M. Chiu. 2026. “Neuroimmune Interferon Signals Sustain Arthritis Pain”. Nature Neuroscience. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02251-x
Larissa Staurengo-Ferrari, Calvin Wong, and Isaac M. Chiu. 2026. “Neuroimmune Interferon Signals Sustain Arthritis Pain”. Nature Neuroscience. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-026-02251-x
Xin Jiang, Laure Schaeffer, Divya Patni, Tommaso Russo, Chao-Zong Lee, Corey Aguilar, Christine Marques, Karen Jansen-West, Marian Hruska-Plochan, Ananya Ray-Soni, Su Min Lim, Aaron Held, Mei Yue, Paula Castellanos Otero, Sandeep Aryal, Hortense D A M Beaussant, Himanish Basu, Hiro Takakuwa, Lillian M Daughrity, Nandini Ramesh, Paulo Da Costa, Ana Rita A A Quadros, Matthew Nolan, Charles Jourdan F Reyes, Hayden Wheeler, Laura C Moran, Grant Griesman, Benjamin Wymann, Bianca A Trombetta, Emma Sofia Lopez-De-Silanes, Michael Canori, Gopinath Krishnan, Yasmim Vieira Souza Da Silva, Gilbert Eriani, Mark W Albers, Steven E Arnold, Yuyu Song, Ankur Jain, Isaac M Chiu, Yong-Jie Zhang, Fen-Biao Gao, Brian J Wainger, Magdalini Polymenidou, Leonard Petrucelli, Franck Martin, and Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne. 2026. “Blocking RAN Translation Without Altering Repeat RNAs Rescues C9ORF72-Related ALS and FTD Phenotypes”. Science. doi:10.1126/science.adv2600
Xin Jiang, Laure Schaeffer, Divya Patni, Tommaso Russo, Chao-Zong Lee, Corey Aguilar, Christine Marques, Karen Jansen-West, Marian Hruska-Plochan, Ananya Ray-Soni, Su Min Lim, Aaron Held, Mei Yue, Paula Castellanos Otero, Sandeep Aryal, Hortense D A M Beaussant, Himanish Basu, Hiro Takakuwa, Lillian M Daughrity, Nandini Ramesh, Paulo Da Costa, Ana Rita A A Quadros, Matthew Nolan, Charles Jourdan F Reyes, Hayden Wheeler, Laura C Moran, Grant Griesman, Benjamin Wymann, Bianca A Trombetta, Emma Sofia Lopez-De-Silanes, Michael Canori, Gopinath Krishnan, Yasmim Vieira Souza Da Silva, Gilbert Eriani, Mark W Albers, Steven E Arnold, Yuyu Song, Ankur Jain, Isaac M Chiu, Yong-Jie Zhang, Fen-Biao Gao, Brian J Wainger, Magdalini Polymenidou, Leonard Petrucelli, Franck Martin, and Clotilde Lagier-Tourenne. 2026. “Blocking RAN Translation Without Altering Repeat RNAs Rescues C9ORF72-Related ALS and FTD Phenotypes”. Science. doi:10.1126/science.adv2600
2025
Duygu Payzin-Dogru, Tim Froitzheim, Steven J Blair, Siddhartha G Jena, Hani Singer, Julia C Paoli, Ryan T Kim, Emil Kriukov, Sarah E Wilson, Renzhi Hou, Aaron M Savage, Victor Cat, Louis Cammarata V, S Y Celeste Wu, Vivien Bothe, Burcu Erdogan, Shifa Hossain, Noah Lopez, Julia Losner, Juan Velazquez Matos, Sangwon Min, Sebastian Böhm, Anthony E Striker, Kelly E Dooling, Adam H Freedman, Bobby Groves, Benjamin Tajer, Glory Kalu, Eric Wynn, Alan Y L Wong, Nadia Fröbisch, Petr Baranov, Maksim Plikus V, Jason D Buenrostro, Brian J Haas, Isaac M Chiu, Timothy B Sackton, and Jessica L Whited. 2025. “Adrenergic Signaling Coordinates Distant and Local Responses to Amputation in Axolotl”. Cell. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.09.025
Duygu Payzin-Dogru, Tim Froitzheim, Steven J Blair, Siddhartha G Jena, Hani Singer, Julia C Paoli, Ryan T Kim, Emil Kriukov, Sarah E Wilson, Renzhi Hou, Aaron M Savage, Victor Cat, Louis Cammarata V, S Y Celeste Wu, Vivien Bothe, Burcu Erdogan, Shifa Hossain, Noah Lopez, Julia Losner, Juan Velazquez Matos, Sangwon Min, Sebastian Böhm, Anthony E Striker, Kelly E Dooling, Adam H Freedman, Bobby Groves, Benjamin Tajer, Glory Kalu, Eric Wynn, Alan Y L Wong, Nadia Fröbisch, Petr Baranov, Maksim Plikus V, Jason D Buenrostro, Brian J Haas, Isaac M Chiu, Timothy B Sackton, and Jessica L Whited. 2025. “Adrenergic Signaling Coordinates Distant and Local Responses to Amputation in Axolotl”. Cell. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.09.025
Deepika Sharma, Ankit Malik, Veronica Locher, Shaina McGrath, Sarah Zabala, Hardik Grover, Cezary Ciszewski, Li Chen, Daping Yang, Isaac M Chiu, and Bana Jabri. 2025. “A Myeloid Tet2-IL-1β Axis Modulates Intestinal Inflammation by Restricting Catecholaminergic Stimulation of Enterochromaffin Cell Differentiation”. Immunity. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2025.10.012
Deepika Sharma, Ankit Malik, Veronica Locher, Shaina McGrath, Sarah Zabala, Hardik Grover, Cezary Ciszewski, Li Chen, Daping Yang, Isaac M Chiu, and Bana Jabri. 2025. “A Myeloid Tet2-IL-1β Axis Modulates Intestinal Inflammation by Restricting Catecholaminergic Stimulation of Enterochromaffin Cell Differentiation”. Immunity. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2025.10.012
Pavitha Parathan, Kelly Tran, Liam Neil, Tao Tan, Annalisa L E Carli, Yang Liao, Dmitri Mouradov, Jessica Da Gama Duarte, Anne Huber, Bhupinder Pal, Peter Gibbs, Oliver M Sieber, Isaac M Chiu, Conor J Kearney, Wei Shi, John M Mariadason, David S Williams, Michael Buchert, and Lisa A Mielke. 2025. “Sensory Neuropeptide CGRP and Its Co-Receptor RAMP1 Drive Tumour Cell Growth in Gastrointestinal Cancers”. BMJ Oncology. doi:10.1136/bmjonc-2025-000842
Pavitha Parathan, Kelly Tran, Liam Neil, Tao Tan, Annalisa L E Carli, Yang Liao, Dmitri Mouradov, Jessica Da Gama Duarte, Anne Huber, Bhupinder Pal, Peter Gibbs, Oliver M Sieber, Isaac M Chiu, Conor J Kearney, Wei Shi, John M Mariadason, David S Williams, Michael Buchert, and Lisa A Mielke. 2025. “Sensory Neuropeptide CGRP and Its Co-Receptor RAMP1 Drive Tumour Cell Growth in Gastrointestinal Cancers”. BMJ Oncology. doi:10.1136/bmjonc-2025-000842