- Associate Professor, Department of Immunobiology, Department of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University
- Associate Director of Human and Translational Immunology, Department of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University
- Associate Director, Colton Center for Autoimmunity, Yale School of Medicine / Yale Ventures, Yale University
Dr. Carrie L. Lucas received her PhD from Harvard Medical School and completed her postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, NIAID. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine and Associate Director of the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at Yale University, where her laboratory is devoted to discovering new and translationally relevant principles of immunology by defining and studying human genetic immune disorders.
Combining human genomics, in vitro studies using primary patient cells, and in vivo mouse modeling, her team generates basic and translational insights starting with patients. The lab’s focus on primary immunodeficiencies has largely centered on phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling, with particular emphasis on disease mechanisms and treatments in patients with mutations in PI3K subunits — including Activated PI3K-delta Syndrome (APDS1 and APDS2) and Inactivated PI3K-gamma Syndrome (IPGS). This work has recently culminated in FDA approval of targeted therapy for APDS.
More recently, the lab has expanded its focus to inflammatory diseases, including SARS-CoV-2-associated multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and vaccine-associated myocarditis. A major current effort centers on new biology illuminated by a monogenic autoinflammatory disease the Lucas lab named Deficiency in ELF4, X-linked (DEX).
Each research project begins with pediatric immune diseases and aims to leverage that knowledge toward new therapies, including precision medicine approaches in monogenic diseases. The rare diseases studied uniquely enable deep mechanistic insights into human immunology, providing translational knowledge to improve understanding and treatment of a broader set of common immune-mediated conditions.