Juilee Thakar, PhD

Principal investigator, University of Rochester Medical Center

Juilee Thakar is the principal investigator of the Thakar Lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center (2022). The lab’s research is mainly focused on the use of bioinformatics and the analysis of datasets that include:  gene expression levels, single-cell RNA sequences, as well as signaling and metabolic pathways information. The lab has developed methodology to conduct pathway analysis of very large datasets in order to research the effects of diseases and make predictions of immune responses to vaccinations and infections.

Most recently, Juliee has been involved in capturing and analyzing large datasets that document changes differences in RNA expression levels, as animals (e.g. C. elegans) develop and change over a lifespan (Lazaro-Pena et al., 2023). Analyzing changes in RNA expression can be helpful in determining how protein expression levels change during an organism’s development and maturation. Additionally, she is also involved in a longitudinal study that is gathering 5 years of questionnaire and patient sample data from mothers and infants in rural Mennonite and urban centre communities to assess biomarkers that may correlate with the development of immunity and/or allergies (Järvinen et al., 2022).

The aim of the study mentioned above is to find out why some children develop allergies and asthmas. The team hypothesizes that changes in our environment, food, and exposure to germs may be causing these health issues.  Even though susceptibility to developing allergies can be inherited from parents, it is believed that the way many people live in cities might be making the problems worse due to their exposure to lower levels of exposure to microbes found in farms.

The study being conducted is called “Zooming in to Old Order Mennonites” (ZOOM) in which they aim to compare babies from families of farmers with those who were born and/or raised in cities. The objective of the research is to investigate the ways our immune system develops in infancy and how various biomarkers and factors in our bodies might be linked to allergies. The team collected various samples from the infants and their mothers, such as blood, stool, and milk, for analysis. This sampling was done regularly from the time of birth until about two years of age. The researchers also recorded any food allergies, skin problems, and breathing issues in these infants for consideration (Järvinen et al., 2022).

Due to the study still being an ongoing investigation outcomes have not been reported yet, but it is interesting to think how factors such as germs and place of birth can affect the development of human immune systems during infancy and adolescence.

Fun Facts: 

Juilee Thakar completed her Bachelors in Science majoring in microbiology and mathematics at the University of Pune, India; later she completed a Masters in microbiology and computational biology in 2003. She also completed her PhD in bioinformatics at the University of Wurzburg, Germany in 2006. She has received many awards including: the Cancer-Research-Institute fellowship, PhRMA research starter award informatics, and Novel Biostatistical and Epidemiologic Methods Awards between 2016 and 2017. She worked as a cancer research institute fellow at Pennsylvania State University, USA, and later became an associate research scientist in the department of pathology at the Yale School of Medicine, USA.