Meet Our Team

Margaret Chang, M.D., Ph.D

Dr. Chang is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and is a Pediatric Rheumatologist in the Division of Immunology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She obtained her M.D./Ph.D. degree from the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine in 2013 and completed pediatric residency and pediatric rheumatology fellowship training at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2019.

Dr. Chang’s research interests are in site-specific autoimmune diseases, with an emphasis on tissue resident memory T cells and how they contribute to joint-specific memory and arthritis flares, as well as T cells drivers of autoimmune uveitis.

Yusuke Miyashita, M.D., Ph.D

Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Miyashita received his M.D. degree from Kumamoto University in 2011 and become a licensed pediatrician in the Japanese Medical Association in 2016. He completed his Ph.D. degree from Kumamoto University in 2022. His previous research is on the regulatory mechanism of IL-17RA signaling and identifying microRNAs related with vaccine response. He is currently investigating tissue resident memory T cell and synovial fibroblast interactions in arthritis.

Publications

Toyoda M, Tan TS, Motozono C, Barabona G, Yonekawa A, Shimono N, Minami R, Nagasaki Y, Miyashita Y, Oshiumi H, Nakamura K, Matsushita S, Kuwata T, Ueno T. Evaluation of Neutralizing Activity against Omicron Subvariants in BA.5 Breakthrough Infection and Three-Dose Vaccination Using a Novel Chemiluminescence-Based, Virus-Mediated Cytopathic Assay. Microbiol. Spectr., 2023 Aug 17:11(4):e0066023

Motozono C, Toyoda M, Tan T, Hamana H, Goto Y, Aritsu Y, Miyashita Y, Oshiumi H, Nakamura K, Okada S, Udaka K, Kitamatsu M, Kishi H, and Ueno T. The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 spike G446S mutation potentiates antiviral T cell recognition. Nat. Commun., 2022 Sep 21:13(1):5440

Miyashita Y, Yoshida T, Takagi Y, Tsukamoto H, Takashima K, Kouwaki T, Makino K, Fukushima S, Nakamura K, Oshiumi H. Circulating extracellular vesicle microRNAs associated with adverse reactions, proinflammatory cytokine, and antibody production after COVID-19 vaccination. npj Vaccine, 2022 Feb 8;7(1):16

Miyashita Y, Kouwaki T, Tsukamoto H, Okamoto M, Nakamura K, Oshiumi H. TICAM-1/TRIF associates with Act1 and suppresses IL-17 receptor-mediated inflammatory responses, Life Sci Alliance, 2021 Nov 24;5(2):e202101181

Miyashita Y, Ishikawa K, Fukushima Y, Kouwaki T, Nakamura K, Oshiumi H. Immune-regulatory microRNA Expression Levels Within Circulating Extracellular Vesicles Correspond with the Appearance of Local Symptoms After Seasonal Flu Vaccination. PLos One, 2019 Jul 9;14(7):e0219510

Awards

  • 2023-2025 JSPS Overseas Research Fellowships, awarded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

  • 2023 SENSHIN Medical Research Foundation, awarded by Hematology Medicine Research Grants for Study Abroad

  • 2022 Kumamoto University Hospital Young Researcher Activation Project

Maryrose Hahn, B.S.

Research Assistant

Maryrose graduated from Northeastern University in 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in Health Science and a minor in Biology. Her previous research was on the immunomodulatory effects of IL-10 cytokine signaling in autoimmune hepatitis. She joined the Chang lab in 2022, working on studying the role of IL-15 in the development of tissue resident memory T cells in the the synovium. She is also investigating the cytokine profile within ocular fluid of patients with autoimmune uveitis, particularly in its intersection with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Awards

  • Joint Biology Consortium Microgrant Award 2023

  • Rheumatology Research Foundation Choose Rheumatology Scholarship

Spoorthi Balu, B.A.

Research Assistant

Spoorthi graduated from Barnard College in 2021 with a Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and a minor in Art History. While at Barnard, she completed an honors thesis studying the interaction of proteins implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. She started working with Dr. Chang as a student in 2018 to identify tissue resident memory T cells in synovium samples from patients with rheumatoid arthritis using multispectral microscopy techniques. She then worked on characterizing immune cells in ocular fluid of patients with autoimmune uveitis. Spoorthi left the Chang lab in 2023 to pursue medical school.

Publications

Chang MH*, Levescot A*, Nelson-Maney N, Blaustein RB, Winden KD, Morris A, Wactor A, Balu S, Grieshaber-Bouyer R, Wei K, Henderson LA, Iwakura Y, Clark RA, Rao DA, Fuhlbrigge RC, Nigrovic PA. Arthritis Flares Mediated by Tissue Resident Memory T Cells in the Joint. Cell Rep. 2021 Oct 26;37(4):109902. PMID 34706228.

Awards

  • Joint Biology Consortium Microgrant Award 2023

Madison Mangin

Undergraduate Student

Madison is an undergraduate student at Northeastern University, majoring in Health Science. She previously worked at Lumos Diagnostics optimizing flow tests to differentiate bacteria from viral infections. She joined the Chang Lab in 2022 as a student intern studying tissue resident memory T cells in 3D synovial organoids.

Awards

  • Rheumatology Research Foundation Choose Rheumatology Scholarship

You?

Interested in joining? We are actively looking for motivated researchers to join our team.