Jack Major, PhD

2024 Leon Levy Scholars in Neuroscience

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Sub-disciplinary Category

Neuroimmunology, Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience

Previous Positions

• PhD, Francis Crick Institute and Imperial College London (Advisor: Dr. Andreas Wack)

Bio

Dr. Jack Major was raised in northeast England before moving to the University of Glasgow to complete an Undergraduate degree in Immunology. For his PhD, Jack’s research focused on the response of lung epithelia and endothelia. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Shruti Naik.

Research Summary

Understanding the long-term effects of inflammation on somatosensory neurons, cells that perceive and communicate information about external stimuli and internal states such as touch, temperature and pain.

Technical Overview

Over the course of a lifetime, our organs and tissues frequently encounter inflammation due to infection, injury, inflammatory disease and cancer. Recent research indicates that cells ‘remember’ specific inflammatory signals, which influences their response to future stimuli long after the initial inflammation has subsided. Dr. Jack Major’s research looks at how sensory neurons respond to such inflammatory encounters and whether these cellular experiences shape neuronal function long-term. Sensory neurons, which form a dense network within our tissues, surveil the body for diverse stimuli that trigger somatosensory behaviors including pain, itch and touch. One of the main aims of Dr. Major’s research program is to understand whether previous exposure to inflammation heightens sensory pathologies, like pain or itch, behaviors which are often heightened in inflammatory diseases. The consequences of peripheral neurons harboring a memory of inflammation may be vast, particularly given the interconnectivity of sensory fibers with both the central nervous system and our immune system. Understanding how neurons adapt to these challenges will bolster our understanding of neuroimmune interplay and somatosensory function in diseases with chronic inflammation.