Max Spurrell

Max was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island. As an undergraduate researcher at Brown University, he worked in Dr. Gary Wessel's lab studying how developmental divergence produces evolutionary novelty in sea urchins and sea stars. Having lived with autoimmune type 1 diabetes since a young age, he then shifted his research interests to understanding human immunology. In Dr. Nir Hacohen's lab at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, he examined the multicellular interactions present in human lung cancer and how these cellular networks associate with immunotherapy outcomes. Now as a member of the Yale MD/PhD program, he is eager to study immune tolerance and work towards developing new strategies to reverse disease for patients living with autoimmune diseases.