PhD Program in Cell Biology
Mentor: J. Kimble Frazer, MD, PhD
ahmed-adib@ou.edu
My research focuses on the cellular mechanisms driving human thymic involution, the age-associated atrophy of the thymus that is the first major step of immunosenescence. Using pediatric thymic tissues spanning infancy through adolescence, I investigate how B cells organize germinal center-like structures within the thymus and how this relates to the progression of involution. Using imaging techniques and spatial transcriptomics, I am currently working on defining the composition, localization, and transcriptional signature of these structures relative to germinal centers of secondary lymphoid organs, and test whether their B cells undergo antigen-driven selection against cell(s) present in thymic microenvironment.