John Tsang is a systems immunologist, computational biologist, and engineer. He is currently the Anthony N. Brady Professor of Immunobiology and Biomedical Engineering at Yale University and the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Systems and Engineering Immunology (CSEI), which serves as the center of research for systems, quantitative, and synthetic immunology at Yale.
Tsang has been a global leader in elucidating the molecular and cellular underpinnings of human immune variations through the development of cutting-edge systems immunology, machine learning/artificial intelligence (AI), quantitative modeling, and high-dimensional human immune monitoring approaches. He has pioneered and established the concepts and predictive metrics of human immune setpoints and immune health, including in diseases such as autoimmunity and cancer, as well as responses to vaccines, infections, and therapeutics in human populations spanning the lifespan from infancy to old age. Tsang is also interested in developing a predictive immune cell engineering toolkit to program immune cells as sensors of tissue statuses, which will facilitate longitudinal immune and health monitoring of the entire body. Towards realizing this vision, he and his colleagues are engaged in quantitatively dissecting the mechanisms and design principles of tissue-blood communications and immune cell trafficking, including cell-cell interactions and signal integration by immune cells within tissues.
Tsang has received numerous awards for his research, including several NIH/NIAID Merit Awards for his scientific leadership in systems immunology, COVID-19, and human immunology research. His work on identifying human immune variations and predicting vaccination responses was selected as a Top NIAID Research Advance of 2014. Dr. Tsang has served as an advisor on systems immunology and computational biology for numerous programs and organizations, including the Allen Institute, World Allergy Organization, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Snow Medical, and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (Australia).
Tsang earned his Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University and trained in computer engineering (BASc) and computer science (MMath) at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Prior to joining Yale, he was a tenured Senior Investigator in the National Institutes of Health’s Intramural Research Program and led a laboratory focused on systems and quantitative immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He served as the Co-Director of the NIH Center for Human Immunology (2017–2022) and led its program in systems and computational human immunology (2010–2022). He continues to serve as an Adjunct Investigator at NIAID.
