Meet Our Team

Margaret Chang, MD, PhD

Dr. Chang is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Pediatric Rheumatologist in the Division of Immunology at Boston Children’s Hospital. She obtained her M.D./Ph.D. degree from the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine in 2013. She completed pediatric residency and pediatric rheumatology fellowship training at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2019 before joining the faculty.

Dr. Chang’s research interests are in site-specific autoimmune diseases, with an emphasis on tissue resident memory T cells and how they contribute to joint-specific memory and arthritis flares, as well as T cells drivers of autoimmune uveitis.

Yusuke Miyashita, MD, PhD

Dr. Miyashita received his M.D. degree from Kumamoto University in 2011 and become a licensed pediatrician in the Japanese Medical Association in 2016. He completed his Ph.D. degree from Kumamoto University in 2022. His previous research is on the regulatory mechanism of IL-17RA signaling and identifying microRNAs related with vaccine response. He is currently investigating tissue resident memory T cells and synovial fibroblast interactions in arthritis.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Toyoda M, Tan TS, Motozono C, Barabona G, Yonekawa A, Shimono N, Minami R, Nagasaki Y, Miyashita Y, Oshiumi H, Nakamura K, Matsushita S, Kuwata T, Ueno T. Evaluation of Neutralizing Activity against Omicron Subvariants in BA.5 Breakthrough Infection and Three-Dose Vaccination Using a Novel Chemiluminescence-Based, Virus-Mediated Cytopathic Assay. Microbiol. Spectr., 2023 Aug 17:11(4):e0066023

Motozono C, Toyoda M, Tan T, Hamana H, Goto Y, Aritsu Y, Miyashita Y, Oshiumi H, Nakamura K, Okada S, Udaka K, Kitamatsu M, Kishi H, and Ueno T. The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 spike G446S mutation potentiates antiviral T cell recognition. Nat. Commun., 2022 Sep 21:13(1):5440

Miyashita Y, Yoshida T, Takagi Y, Tsukamoto H, Takashima K, Kouwaki T, Makino K, Fukushima S, Nakamura K, Oshiumi H. Circulating extracellular vesicle microRNAs associated with adverse reactions, proinflammatory cytokine, and antibody production after COVID-19 vaccination. npj Vaccine, 2022 Feb 8;7(1):16

Miyashita Y, Kouwaki T, Tsukamoto H, Okamoto M, Nakamura K, Oshiumi H. TICAM-1/TRIF associates with Act1 and suppresses IL-17 receptor-mediated inflammatory responses, Life Sci Alliance, 2021 Nov 24;5(2):e202101181

Miyashita Y, Ishikawa K, Fukushima Y, Kouwaki T, Nakamura K, Oshiumi H. Immune-regulatory microRNA Expression Levels Within Circulating Extracellular Vesicles Correspond with the Appearance of Local Symptoms After Seasonal Flu Vaccination. PLos One, 2019 Jul 9;14(7):e0219510

Publications

  • 2023-2025 JSPS Overseas Research Fellowships, awarded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science

  • 2022 Kumamoto University Hospital Young Researcher Activation Project

Awards

Yang Yang, PhD

Dr. Yang obtained his Ph.D. degree from Baylor University in 2023. His previous research focused on gene editing, RNA sequencing, and neurobiology, with a particular interest in the auditory system. He is currently investigating pathways in resident memory T cell differentiation and memory T cell plasticity in arthritis.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Yang, Y., Murtha, K., Climer, L.K., Ceriani, F., Thompson, P., Hornak, A.J., Marcotti, W. and Simmons, D.D. (2023), Oncomodulin regulates spontaneous calcium signalling and maturation of afferent innervation in cochlear outer hair cells. J Physiol.

Murtha, K.E†., Yang Y†, Ceriani, F., Jeng, J.-Y., Climer, L.K., Jones, F., Charles, J., Devana, S.K., Hornak, A.J., Marcotti, W., Simmons, D.D., 2022. Oncomodulin (OCM) uniquely regulates calcium signaling in neonatal cochlear outer hair cells. Cell calcium, 105, 102613.

Yang, Y., Wu, D., Liu, D., Shi, J., Zhou, R., He, X., Quan, J., Cai, G., Zheng, E., Wu, Z., & Li, Z. (2017). Mutation of the XIST gene upregulates expression of X-linked genes but decreases the developmental rates of cloned male porcine embryos. Molecular reproduction and development, 84(6), 525–534.

Publications

  • 2020   Smith Fellowship. Department of Biology, Baylor University

  • 2020   MidWinter Travel Award. Association for Research in Otolaryngology

  • 2020   TSM Travel Award. 55th Meeting of the Texas Society for Microscopy

Awards

Madison Mangin

Madison graduated from Northeastern University in 2024 with a Bachelor’s degree in Health Science. She previously worked at Lumos Diagnostics optimizing flow tests to differentiate bacteria from viral infections. She joined the Chang Lab in 2022 as a student intern studying tissue resident memory T cells in 3D synovial organoids, and will continue this work as a research assistant.

Research Assistant

Awards

  • Rheumatology Research Foundation Choose Rheumatology Scholarship

Lillie Sutton

Lillie is a senior at Wake Forest University, pursuing her Bachelor's of Science in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and minoring in Neuroscience. Her previous research at Wake Forest's School of Medicine focused on macrophage activation in adipose tissues of rodent models of obesity. She joined the Chang lab to study treatment approaches to refractory noninfectious uveitis.

Summer Intern

Awards

  • Guy T. Carswell Scholar

  • Leadership and Character Scholar

You?

Interested in joining? We are actively looking for motivated researchers to join our team.