EDWARD CHUONG, Assistant Professor at the BioFrontiers Institute, at the University of Colorado Boulder
My lab studies the interplay between transposons and immune evolution. We can think of transposons as a genetic infection that we can never get rid of. Although our cells have evolved defenses against them, transposons are also a part of our own DNA, and have fundamentally altered our evolution. Unlike most studies which discard transposons, we take a “transposon-centric” approach and screen for transposons that are potentially biologically significant. On the other hand, when not in the lab, as a Colorado cliché, I’m ideally somewhere outside hiking, cycling, climbing, or camping, or sourdough baking when inside. Lately, this time has been completely consumed (in a good way) by taking care of our first newborn.
Interviewed by Maialen Sebastian
Please tell us your name, degree, where you currently work, and position.
My name is Ed Chuong, PhD. I’m currently an Assistant Professor at the BioFrontiers Institute, at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Where did you do your training?
My start into research began as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego, where I majored in Bioinformatics and was a research assistant in the lab of Dr. Hopi Hoekstra, who inspired me to become an evolutionary biologist. I did my PhD in Genetics at Stanford with Dr. Julie Baker, where I studied placenta evolution. This work led me to learn about endogenous retroviruses, which I dove into during my postdoc at the University of Utah with Dr. Nels Elde and Dr. Cedric Feschotte.
Briefly, what is your research about?
At CU Boulder, my lab studies the interplay between transposons and immune evolution. We can think of transposons as a genetic infection that we can never get rid of. Although our cells have evolved defenses against them, transposons are also a part of our own DNA, and have fundamentally altered our evolution. To study transposons, my lab makes extensive use of functional genomic data, including long-read transcriptomics, chromatin profiling, single-cell RNA-seq, and whole-genome sequencing data. Unlike most studies which discard transposons, we take a “transposon-centric” approach and screen for transposons that are potentially biologically significant. When possible, we try to experimentally validate these predictions in cell line models. Our work has established transposons as an important source of genetic variation that can catalyze adaptive evolution driven by pathogens. With our approach, we have also identified species-specific regulatory elements and gene isoforms of multiple critical immune genes—like IFNAR2—that underlie previously unappreciated species-specific immune function.
Tell us your thoughts about ICIS: how has being involved in the Cytokine Society helped your career?
I’ve been studying interferon signaling for many years, but regrettably I hadn’t yet been to the Cytokine meeting until Athens 2023. The cytokines community was incredibly welcoming, and the meeting was an amazing opportunity to meet people from both academia and industry. The recognition by the Regeneron New Investigator award was an honor and endorsement that our evolutionary angle to studying cytokines is interesting to the immunology community.
Are there any particular friendships or collaborations that came specifically out of Cytokines meetings?
I met so many great people at Cytokines who I’m looking forward to collaborating with and seeing again at future meetings. After my talk, multiple disease immunologists came by to initiate new collaborations, including looking at transposon-derived activity in different immune diseases. These are super exciting new directions for me, coming from a genome evolution background. It was also particularly nice to meet other new PIs who started a lab during the pandemic.
What Cytokines meeting(s) have been your favorites? Tell us about any special memories or anecdotes.
Athens 2023 was my first (but not last) ICIS meeting so far, but it certainly ranks up there one of my favorite meetings overall. Drinking wine at the Acropolis Museum Patio under the Parthenon was very memorable as far as conference events go.
What do you like to do when not in the lab?
As a Colorado cliché, I’m ideally somewhere outside hiking, cycling, climbing, or camping, or sourdough baking when inside. Lately, this time has been completely consumed (in a good way) by taking care of our first newborn.
What is the best life/career advice you’ve ever received?
One piece of advice that resonated with me more recently was from an article by Dr. Beronda Montgomery, about setting your own “academic index.” Like any career, scientists are evaluated and promoted by a variety of metrics, like the publication count and grant dollars. As a new PI, it is natural to become obsessive about checking the boxes to get tenure, which can be very stressful because getting funding is so competitive and much is out of our hands. The point of her advice is that academics should step back and define their own personal vision of success, and that succeeding by your personal index is more important than succeeding in one defined by other people. I found taking this perspective helped to me focus on the positive aspects of the job and made the first few hectic years of being a PI more enjoyable.
What book or TV show are you reading/watching right now that you recommend?
I’d recommend “Children of Time” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, where a “nano-virus” is used to accelerate species evolution on terraformed planets. I had no idea the story would be so close to home but quickly became a fan!
What is your favorite cytokine?
Most of my lab focuses on type I IFNs now, but I’ll always remember my “first” cytokine: IFN gamma. The cytokine itself is evolutionarily more stable (encoded by a single gene in most species, unlike type I IFNs encoded by a dynamic gene family), which was useful for studying the evolution of a regulatory network. Also, IFN-gamma triggers the transcriptional activity of more transposons in human cells.
Twitter/X account: @edchuong