HAN ZHU LAB

Mission Statement

The Han Zhu lab is dedicated to discovering the underpinnings of immune-related diseases in the heart. Cancer therapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors may cause toxicity in the heart, including severe myocarditis, making it difficult for patients with cancer to get the life-saving treatments they need. We have previously discovered that several key types of immune cells may be involved in potentiating this disease, and we are focused on understanding the pathogenesis of immune checkpoint inhibitor induced myocarditis and other cardiac inflammatory diseases using a combination of precision medicine-oriented techniques including single-cell RNA-seq, TCR-seq, and CyTOF as well as classical molecular biology, cell modeling and animal modeling. We also collaborate with a number of other groups within the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, and Division of Oncology/Stanford Cancer Institute to address therapeutic targets which can be brought to the patient bedside.