#  Jennifer Oyler-Yaniv 

Assistant Professor of Systems Biology

 

 

 



   ![Jen](/sites/g/files/omnuum12386/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2026-08/Olyer-Yaniv.jpg?itok=xOb1Bxpp) 

 



 





 

210 Longwood Avenue  
Armenise Building, Room 555  
Boston, MA 02115

**Email**: [Jennifer\_Oyler-Yaniv@hms.harvard.edu](mailto:Jennifer_Oyler-Yaniv@hms.harvard.edu); [alon\_oyler-yaniv@hms.harvard.edu ](mailto:alon_oyler-yaniv@hms.harvard.edu)

**Website**: [https://www.oylab.science](https://www.oylab.science/)

**Research Summary**

How does the immune system maintain tissue integrity and function while clearing pathogens? The air we breathe is teeming with bacteria and fungi, our skin and mucosal surfaces are home to trillions of bacteria, and our genome is littered with the remnants of countless viral infections. Our immune system must sift through this onslaught to respond to *true* threats in a manner that is tailored to the specific pathogen type and magnitude. Failure to clear a pathogen means the spread of infection, but overreaction leads to immune-driven tissue destruction, inflammatory disease, and fibrosis. Shockingly, the immune system only rarely fails.

We are obsessed with understanding this fine balance at the molecular, cellular, and whole organ scales. By exploring the feedbacks between the host and pathogen, which exist at multiple scales, we seek answers to these questions. We believe quantitative questions call for quantitative solutions, so we blend methods and concepts from classical immunology and host-pathogen interactions, with biophysics, systems biology, and machine learning. We like to follow questions across multiple scales, often starting at the single cell level and ending at whole organisms that we explore using light-sheet microscopy.



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Person Categories
    
     [Faculty](/person-categories/faculty)