- Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Andrew Wells is Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine, based at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he co-directs the Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics. He trained as a molecular immunologist and has built his career studying the genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptional control of T cell immunity and tolerance.
The Wells laboratory has produced landmark 3D chromatin–based variant-to-gene maps across 57 human cell types, revealing the cellular and genetic architecture of autoimmune disease susceptibility. His group integrates ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, Capture-C, and CRISPR functional screens to identify causal variants and effector genes at autoimmune GWAS loci, with major discoveries at IL2RA, IRF8, and other autoimmune risk genes that bridge population genetics to mechanism.
As co-director of the Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics, Dr. Wells anchors one of the leading variant-to-function platforms in autoimmune disease research. He is a senior collaborator within the Penn Colton Center for Autoimmunity, the Institute for Immunology and Immune Health, and a wide range of disease-specific consortia, providing the genomic framework that connects GWAS findings to actionable biology.