Hsin-Jung Joyce Wu, BVM, PhD

Academic/Clinical Roles

Professor

Ronald L. Whisler Endowed Chair 

Address, Phone Number and Email Address

Hsin-Jung Joyce Wu
Department of Internal Medicine
Division of Rheumatology-Immunology
Rm S2051, Davis Medical Research Center,
480 Medical Center Drive, Columbus, OH, 43210
614-685-4373

Joyce.Wu2@osumc.edu

Biography

Dr. Joyce Wu obtained her Bachelor of Veterinarian Medicine degree from National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan. She then relocated to the US, receiving her PhD degree from the University of Kentucky, where she studied B cell signaling. For her post-doctoral training, she joined the lab of Drs. Diane Mathis and Christophe Benoist at Harvard University, where she investigated the roles of gut microbiota in T cells in the context of autoimmune diseases. She joined the University of Arizona as faculty in the Department of Immunobiology in 2011. Dr. Wu was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2018. Dr. Wu was then recruited as a tenured professor and Ronald L. Whisler Endowed Chair to the Division of Rheumatology and Immunology in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Ohio State University in Oct 2021. 

Research Interests

Imbalance of gut microbiota (dysbiosis) leads to many diseases including those located systemically (outside the gut). Dysbiosis-associated systemic autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus have been rising rapidly and are emerging as modern epidemics. Dr. Wu’s lab focuses on a big question: how microbiota that reside in the gut alter the development of non-gut diseases. Her lab addresses this question by examining how commensals modulate host’s mucosal and systemic immune responses. The results of Wu lab’s studies will pave the way for novel therapies for dysbiosis-related autoimmune diseases.

Current Research

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an important health problem. The low concordance rate of RA in monozygotic twins (15%) compared to other autoimmune diseases such as type I diabetes (~50%) suggests that environmental factors must play a crucial role in the etiopathogenesis of RA. Dr. Wu’s current research addresses two major topics, the gut-joint axis and the gut-lung axis. The gut-joint axis project studies mechanisms underlying the gut microbiota’s influence on arthritis, focusing on T cell plasticity and exhaustion; both topics are poorly understood and their role in autoimmune disease remains largely unknown. Using “fate-mapping” in a murine arthritis model, the lab found that gut microbiota can convert already differentiated T cells into another T cell type, promoting arthritis. Dr. Wu and her team are applying these findings to RA patients by using synovial and peripheral blood cells to study the biomarkers and functions that are tied to the gut-origin of the disease.

Lung complications are common, and a major cause of death in RA patients. RA’s lung pathogenesis has remained poorly understood. Dr. Wu’s lab has established a novel RA lung disease model that displays human RA-like lung lesions and functional defects.  Many lung diseases are linked to gut dysbiosis, yet this phenomenon, termed the gut-lung axis, remains poorly studied. The gut-lung axis project in the Wu lab studies the TCR repertoire and T cell metabolism with a focus on hypoxia-inducible factor-1a (HIF-1α), an O₂ sensor in hypoxic tissue such as gut. The Wu lab has developed a state-of-the-art photoconverting technique to track single cell migration between gut and systemic tissues to study this topic.

Lab members

• Hsin-Jung Joyce Wu, BVM, PhD (PI)
• Maddie Cutcliffe, BS (Lab manager)
• Laurie Baert, PhD (postdoctoral fellow)
• Tingting Fan, PhD (postdoctoral fellow)
• Alison Brittain, DO, PhD (postdoctoral fellow)
• Sruthi Sureshkumar, MS (research assistant)
• Essa Gul (undergraduate)
• Neha Kazmi (undergraduate)
• Austin Richey (undergraduate)

Active Funding

Honors and Awards

• 2021 - Ronald L. Whisler Endowed Chair, Dept of Internal Medicine, OSU
• 2017 - AAI Early Career Faculty travel grant, AAI Immunology 2017
• 2016 - AAI Travel Award, 16th International Congress of Immunology
• 2012 - Dynasty Foundation, Russia
• 2010 - Sontag Foundation Fellow of Arthritis National Research Foundation

Select Publications (list of current project-related pubs from Wu lab)