Kailin Mesa
Princeton University, NJ·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Salamanders can regrow whole limbs, but mammals usually heal wounds by forming scars. Immune cells guide this choice between rebuilding and scarring, yet the immune programs involved are poorly understood.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Biology
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
tissue regeneration
wound healing
scarring
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2031
What they work on
- Identify the immune circuits that allow mouse digit tips to regenerate, using intravital two-photon microscopy, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, and targeted pathway perturbations.
- Define how age and type of injury reshape immune control of regeneration versus scarring in the mouse ear pinna, using in vivo photolabeling to track cells over time.
- Test how specific immune genes direct ear tissue repair by switching them with light-controlled optogenetic tools and mapping immune–stromal cell networks.
More about the research
The ability to regenerate also declines with age. Understanding how immune cells and stem cells work together could explain why some injuries fully heal while others scar.
Why it matters
Many older people and patients with chronic inflammation heal through scarring rather than true repair. By defining the immune programs that separate regeneration from scarring, this work could reveal molecular targets and immune-based strategies to restore tissue repair in aged or chronically inflamed tissues and to counter chronic fibrotic disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ryan Driskell
Washington State University, WA·Biology
Test whether Lef1, a Wnt-pathway transcription factor, is the master regulator of newborn papillary fibroblast function by switching it on in adult mouse skin fibroblasts and using wounding and chamber grafting assays to see if scarring gives way to regeneration.
Eleonora Dondossola
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Define the cell types, gene activity states and real-time behavior of the ccRCC bone metastasis environment in mice, combining multiphoton microscopy in living animals and removed tissue with single-cell RNA sequencing.
Qing Lin
Ohio State University, OH·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether turning Mrgprb2 signaling, a mast-cell surface receptor pathway, up or down changes skin scarring and regeneration, using gene-modified mouse lines in wound healing models.
The school
Princeton University: 26 labs on PI Pages, $559M a year on research, 403 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.