Assistant Professor, Microbiology & Molecular Genetics
School of Medicine

immune disorder, hematopoiesis, stem cells, epigenetics, DNA methylation

Byun Lab

My group is interested in understanding the impact of genetic variants on the function of immune cells and on predisposition to pathologies driven by the immune system. In particular, we are interested in studying defects of the DNA methylation pathway in the context of aging-associated clonal hematopoiesis. Acquired mutations in DNMT3A (a writer of DNA methylation) and TET2 (an eraser of DNA methylation) are common in the hematopoietic stem cells of elderly individuals, estimated to affect more than 10% of adults over the age of 65. These mutations increase the risk for various age-related comorbidities such as atherosclerosis, thereby nearly doubling the mortality rate of affected individuals. We hypothesize that these mutations impair DNA methylation remodeling that occurs during the differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells, leading to altered gene expression and function of terminally differentiated immune effector cells such as macrophages. We use various cutting-edge human genetic and epigenetic tools and experimental model systems such as human pluripotent stem cell-derived macrophages to address our questions.

Minji Byun received her Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences from POSTECH, Korea, and then moved to the US to pursue graduate studies. She joined the immunology graduate program at Washington University in St. Louis where she did her thesis work on novel immune evasion mechanisms of cowpox virus. Upon receiving her Ph.D., she moved to New York City for postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University. There she identified and characterized rare human mutations underlying HHV8-driven Kaposi sarcoma and viral myocarditis. After her postdoctoral training, she returned to Washington University in St. Louis as faculty, and then recruited to Precision Immunology Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2016. She joined UCI in 2022 as an Assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. She has a broad background in immunology, human genetics, and epigenetics. Her group uses human pluripotent stem cells and immune cells derived from them to study pathogenic mechanisms of inborn and acquired mutations affecting the immune system.

Campisi L, Chizari S, Ho JSY, Gromova A, Arnold F, Mosca L, Mei X, Fstkchyan Y, Torre D, Beharry C, Garcia-Forn M, Jiménez-Alcázar M, Korobeynikov VA, Prazich J, Fayad ZA, Seldin MM, De Rubeis S, Bennett CL, Ostrow LW, Lunetta C, Squatrito M, Byun M, Shneider NA, Jiang N, La Spada AR, Marazzi I. “Clonally expanded CD8 T cells characterize amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-4“, Nature. 2022 Jun 22. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04844-5.

Abyazi ML, Bell KA, Gyimesi G, Baker TS, Byun M, Ko HM, Cunningham-Rundles C, Feng F, Maglione PJ. “Convergence of cytokine dysregulation and antibody deficiency in common variable immunodeficiency with inflammatory complications”, J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2022 Jan;149(1):315-326.e9. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2021.06.008.

Lim J, Duttke S, Baker T, Lee J, Gambino K, Venturini N, Ho JSY, Zheng S, Fstkchyan Y, Pillai V, Fajgenbaum D, Marazzi I, Benner C, Byun M. “DNMT3A haploinsufficiency causes dichotomous DNA methylation defects at enhancers in mature human immune cells”, J Exp Med. 2021 Jul 5;218(7):e20202733. doi: 10.1084/jem.20202733.

Ho JSY, Mok BW, Campisi L, Jordan T, Yildiz S, Parameswaran S, Wayman JA, Gaudreault NN, Meekins DA, Indran SV, Morozov I, Trujillo JD, Fstkchyan YS, Rathnasinghe R, Zhu Z, Zheng S, Zhao N, White K, Ray-Jones H, Malysheva V, Thiecke MJ, Lau SY, Liu H, Zhang AJ, Lee AC, Liu WC, Jangra S, Escalera A, Aydillo T, Melo BS, Guccione E, Sebra R, Shum E, Bakker J, Kaufman DA, Moreira AL, Carossino M, Balasuriya UBR, Byun M, Albrecht RA, Schotsaert M, Garcia-Sastre A, Chanda SK, Miraldi ER, Jeyasekharan AD, TenOever BR, Spivakov M, Weirauch MT, Heinz S, Chen H, Benner C, Richt JA, Marazzi I. “TOP1 inhibition therapy protects against SARS-CoV-2-induced lethal inflammation.”, Cell. 2021 May 13;184(10):2618-2632.e17. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.051.

Baker T, Gambino K, Schriefer L, Lim J, Steinberg KM, Fajgenbaum D, García-Sancho A, Byun M. “A novel FAS mutation with variable expressivity in a family with unicentric and idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease”, Blood Adv. 2018 Nov 13;2(21):2959-2963. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2018023911.

Complete List of Published Work in My Bibliography: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/minji.byun.1/bibliography/public/

Cellular and Molecular Biosciences

Immunology and Pathogenesis

Stem Cell Biology

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=7141

Last updated
09/13/2023