Research

Ami Belmont, MD
Dr. Belmont's research interests include drug allergy and the intersection between drug allergy (e.g., antibiotic allergy labels) and antibiotic stewardship. She is particularly interested in designing interventions to promote the application of evidence-based practices and guidelines for patients with antibiotic allergy labels, particularly in vulnerable patient populations.

Insoo Kang, MD
The research interest of Dr. Kang’s laboratory is to understand the human immune system in health and disease including autoimmunity, inflammation, primary immunodeficiency and atopic diseases using biological samples and clinical data. In particular, Dr. Kang’s lab has defined subsets of T cells with distinct cellular characteristics based on the expression of cytokine receptors on T cells in health and disease as well as the interactions of such cell subsets with monocytes and other immune cells.

John Kuster, MD
Dr. Kuster’s research interests include leveraging genetic testing in immunodeficiency to help identify specific disease associated variants. Identification of these particular pathways have the potential for furthering our understanding of immunodeficiency, and possible future targeted therapies.

Jason Kwah, MD, MSCI
Dr. Kwah collaborates with Dr. Moeun Son in Maternal Fetal Medicine in caring for obstetric patients with allergic and immunologic diseases. Their research interest is in understanding the consequence of penicillin allergy in pregnancy and ways to enhance patient care to improve maternal and neonatal outcomes. Dr. Kwah also has an interest in understanding the relationship between upper and lower airways diseases, such as chronic sinusitis, allergic rhinitis, asthma, and bronchiectasis.

Elise Liu, MD, PhD
Dr. Liu’s research focuses on understanding the production and role of gut immunoglobulin A in food allergy.

Christina Price, MD
Dr. Price's research goals are to understand the relationship between autoimmunity, immune deficiency and tumor immunology. She developed the clinical immunology-oncology program and is establishing databases and biorepositories of patients on immune modulators with the collaborative effort between the internal medicine subspecialists who are treating immune related adverse events from immune modulators.

Junghee Jenny Shin, MD, PhD
Dr. Shin joined Dr. Insoo Kang’s laboratory in 2018. Her research focuses on characterizing clinical phenotypes of patients with primary immune deficiencies and immune dysregulation using in-depth immune profiling techniques. Dr. Shin’s overall research goal is understanding how immune alterations occur and affect the pathogenesis of such disorders in relation to their genetic defects, clinical presentations and comorbidities.

Ryan Steele, DO
Dr. Steele cares for patients in the full range of allergic and immunologic diseases. Prior to entering full time academic practice, he conducted post-doctoral research focusing on small peptide therapeutics for auto-immune diseases, as well as work elucidating the mechanisms behind anti-IgE therapy in chronic urticaria. Most recently he started the Yale Allergy & Immunology Contact Dermatitis Program, where he serves as Program Director, and conducts clinical research into allergic skin diseases.

Florence Ida Hsu, MD
Dr. Hsu has participated over the years in a variety of clinical trials for pharmacotherapeutics in hereditary angioedema and chronic rhinosinusitis. She has published on the safety and efficacy of several rapid drug desensitization protocols and helps to identify patients for clinical studies within our section. Dr. Hsu also collaborates with researchers around the country on other observational clinical studies in hereditary angioedema.

Philip Askenase, MD
Working with the well-known models of cutaneous immune hypersensitivity and immunity, Dr. Askenase discovered the series of steps from challenge with antigen in a sensitized host to the entry of T cells into the site of challenge. This work uncovered a previously unrecognized role of: B-1a B cells, NKT cells, IL-4, complement, serotonin and mast cells. These findings are relevant to the diagnosis and therapy of allergic and autoimmune diseases, as well as cancers and transplantation.

Julie Flom, MD, MPH
Dr. Flom’s clinical and research interests include understanding early life risk factors and underlying mechanisms for development of pediatric allergic diseases including food allergy, asthma, eczema, and environmental allergies, and applications to prevention and treatment of allergic disease.

Kelsey Kaman, MD
The “Learn Early Project” aims to improve food allergy education and outcomes among Black, Hispanic or low socio-economic status children. We have partnered with Head Start centers across Connecticut in hopes of ensuring all children with food allergies can grow and develop in a safe and healthy environment.

Stephanie Leeds, MD
Dr. Leeds has a research interest in food allergy. She has created the first food allergy ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) model™, in which she facilitates food allergy education and case-based discussions with community pediatricians. The purpose of this project is to improve community provider knowledge related to food allergy, improve utilization of diagnostic testing for food allergy, and improve referrals to allergy for detailed evaluation and management of food allergy. Launched in 2003, the ECHO model™ makes specialized medical knowledge accessible wherever it is needed; by putting local clinicians together with specialist teams at academic medical centers in weekly virtual clinics or teleECHO™ clinics, Project ECHO shares knowledge and expands treatment capacity.

Gary Soffer, MD
Dr. Soffer’s research interests focus on integrative medicine and the intersection of allergies and immunity.

Fellows in our A&I training program have also worked with faculty in other departments including:

• Geoffrey Chupp, MD - Yale Center of Asthma and Airway Disease (YCAAD) Research Program
  
• Carrie Lucas, Ph.D. - Lucas Lab
• Noah Palm, Ph.D. - Palm Lab
• Stephanie Eisenbarth, MD, PhD - Eisenbarth Lab
• Eric Meffre, PhD

Additional faculty with laboratory research related to Allergy & Immunology can be found in the Department of Immunobiology.