How One Immunologist's 40-Year Quest Is Reshaping Cancer, Autoimmune, and Vaccine Treatments

Dr. Jenny Ting's four-decade career studying how immune cells detect danger and control inflammation has revolutionized our understanding of the body's defense system. Her discoveries about NOD-like receptor (NLR) proteins—cellular sensors that act as our first line of defense—are now informing treatments for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and viral infections including COVID-19.

What Are NOD-Like Receptors and Why Do They Matter?

Ting is best known for discovering and defining the NOD-like receptor family of innate immune sensors, proteins in our cells that detect infections and regulate inflammation. Think of them as sophisticated alarm systems that can both sound the alert when danger appears and know when to turn off the alarm to prevent damage from chronic inflammation.

Her research revealed something crucial: some NLRs actually limit inflammation rather than amplify it. This discovery provides critical insight into how the immune system avoids self-destruction by shutting down inflammation before it goes too far—an important protection against chronic disease.

How Is This Research Changing Medical Treatments?

Ting's work directly informs how clinicians and researchers approach treating disease, opening doors to new therapeutic strategies. Her discoveries form much of the scientific foundation behind today's efforts in several key areas:

• Cancer Immunotherapy: Developing new treatments that harness the immune system to fight tumors more effectively
• Vaccine Development: Improving how vaccines trigger protective immune responses without causing harmful inflammation
• Autoimmune Disease Treatment: Creating therapies that can better control when the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue
• Nerve Damage Repair: Understanding and repairing damage to the nervous system through immune modulation
• Microbiome Health: Using beneficial bacteria to improve human health and immune function
• Infection Response: Strengthening our ability to fight infections, including COVID-19

Ting is also a co-founder of IMMvention Therapeutix, a company working to turn discoveries about the immune system into new treatments that can better control inflammation and disease in patients.

What Makes Dr. Ting's Career So Remarkable?

Over four decades, Ting has become one of the world's most frequently cited immunologists, authoring more than 360 scientific papers and mentoring more than 100 trainees who now lead laboratories, clinical programs and companies around the world. Her earlier work on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II gene regulation—how immune cells control when to display pieces of germs or tumors on their surface so other immune cells know when to respond—also laid foundational knowledge for understanding processes central to vaccines, autoimmune disease and cancer immunotherapy.

The William Rand Kenan Distinguished Professor of Genetics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received numerous prestigious honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Academia Sinica. She has also served as president of the American Association of Immunologists.

Ting will present her latest findings on April 8 at Indiana University School of Medicine as part of the Mark Brothers Award lecture series, which recognizes nationally and internationally renowned medical scientists of Asian descent. Her presentation will cover how her discoveries connect complex immunology with real-world medical impact, making it valuable for anyone interested in inflammation, infection, cancer, autoimmunity, immunotherapy, neurology or the microbiome.