- Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University
Dr. Tomokazu Sumida is an Assistant Professor of Neurology and Immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine and a clinician-scientist whose research focuses on the molecular mechanisms that maintain immune tolerance and how their disruption drives autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. He earned his MD and PhD from Chiba University in Japan, completed clinical training in internal medicine and cardiology, and pursued postdoctoral training in immunology at Yale.
Dr. Sumida’s laboratory integrates human immunology, single-cell multi-omics, functional genomics, and genome engineering to define disease-relevant immune regulatory circuits. A major focus of his work has been Foxp3+ regulatory T cell dysfunction in multiple sclerosis, including the identification of inflammatory and autoimmune transcriptional programs that impair Treg function. His recent studies also investigate immune checkpoint biology, with a particular focus on TIM-3 as a regulator of human myeloid cell function and innate immune homeostasis.
Dr. Sumida has contributed to studies defining how environmental factors, genetic variants, and interferon-regulated immune programs shape autoimmune disease risk and immune checkpoint expression. His work has been published in leading journals including Nature Immunology, Science Translational Medicine, Nature Reviews Immunology, Immunity, Cell Reports, and Nature Communications. He is the recipient of the National MS Society Harry Weaver Scholar Award and the Race to Erase MS Young Investigator Award.