Will Bailis is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Will began his career in science spending his college summers training under Dr. Chioma Okeoma in the laboratory of Dr. Susan Ross, studying viral restriction by APOBEC3. He then received his PhD in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied the role of Notch signaling in helper T cell differentiation with Dr. Yumi Ohtani, in the lab of Dr. Warren Pear.
After graduating, he joined Dr. Richard Flavell’s research group at Yale University for his postdoctoral fellowship. During his postdoctoral training, he developed in vitro and in vivo primary immune cell CRISPR screening systems to study how cellular metabolism controls immune cell functional programming.
Now an Associate Professor at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, Will leads a group investigating how immune cells reconcile the demands placed on them by their lineage-specific programs against an older, selfish cell biology focused on balancing biosynthetic supply and demand. His group studies this tension in the context of cancer immunotherapy, protective immunity to infection, and malnutrition, with the goal of translating fundamental cell biology into new therapies and diagnostics.
When he isn’t rambling on about science, you can find Will at home with his two small children, navigating Magnitile structures and trying not to step on Legos.
Eric joined the lab in the spring of 2022 as a Clinical Pathology resident physician in the Physician Scientist Training Program at University of Pennsylvania. He is interested in T cell metabolism and leveraging our understanding of immunometabolism for better cellular therapies.
Eric previously completed his MD/PhD training at University of Colorado and did his research in Ross Kedl’s laboratory. There he focused on characterizing mutually beneficial, non-canonical CD8:B cell interactions after subunit vaccination as well as understanding how CD8 T cells that survive antibody-mediated depletion are altered.
He is currently interested in deciphering how CAR and TCR signaling may affect T cell metabolism differently, focusing on NAD synthesis and utilization. Eric will be the Transfusion Medicine Fellow for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for ’23-’24 and as such is motivated to adapt cellular and gene therapies into clinical realities.
Kelly joined the Bailis lab as a postdoctoral fellow in November 2019. Prior to joining, she had completed her PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Warren Pear next door at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied the role of a family of pseudokinases in controlling T cell effector programs during chronic disease and T cell exhaustion.
Her current research interests lie in understanding the role of branched chain amino acids in T cell responses and how immune cells change modes of protein synthesis when they encounter environmental stress.
When not in lab, she enjoys spending time with her husband Scott, booping things with her two kids Carlo and Rosie, and lounging around with her two mischievous cats G and Niko.
Jessie is a postdoc co-mentored with Chris Bennett and joined the Bailis lab in 2025. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024 with a combined RN/PhD degree and completed her thesis work in the lab of Dr. Zolt Arany where she used in vivo isotope tracing to quantify metabolic fluxes and carbon sources of the TCA cycle during energetic stress.
In the Bailis lab, she is interested in studying how tissue resident macrophages regulate systemic metabolic responses to dietary perturbations. Outside of lab, Jessie enjoys reading, running, and spending time with her two cats and dog, which make for a full house!
Clémence joined the Bailis lab in early 2019. She comes from France where she obtained a master's degree in cell and gene tissue biotherapy at the University of Paris East.
She worked for 5 years as a research engineer in a neuroimmunology laboratory in the south of France in the Liblau lab. Her research now focuses on the role of immune cell monoamine production during allergic airway inflammation, while collaborating with other members on models of cancer immunotherapy.
Montana is the Bioinformatician for the lab. She did her undergraduate at Florida Gulf Coast University and then went on to get her doctorate in Bioinformatics at North Carolina State University, where she focused on using ’Omics tools to study plant response to abiotic stress.
Now Montana collaborates on a variety of projects, offering computational expertise and helping analyze data. Her foundation is in advanced applications of RNA-Sequencing data, but she is also interested in machine learning, multivariate statistics, and other ’Omics tools like metabolomics. When not playing around with data, she can be found at a local brewery or walking her dog.
Khris is a graduate student in the Immunology Graduate Group and joined the Bailis lab in 2022. His interest in research began at North Carolina State University where he studied biochemistry and worked on ligand-receptor signaling interactions.
He then worked as a post-baccalaureate fellow in the lab of Dr. Susan Moir at the NIH studying B cell immunology in context of infectious diseases.
In the Bailis lab, he is interested in studying how universal metabolites differentially regulate immune cells throughout their development and how they coordinate responses across multiple cell types within a local microenvironment.
Outside of the lab, Khris enjoys cooking (mainly Southeast/East Asian cuisine) to keep alive his contingency dream of opening a restaurant. Taking the opposite approach from science, he follows no recipes and cooks from the heart. He also enjoys traveling (to eat).
Morgan is a graduate student in the Cancer Biology Program and joined the lab in 2022. A Pennsylvania local, she studied biochemistry and molecular biology at Gettysburg College and spent a few years in the immune-oncology research team at Janssen R&D before pursuing her PhD.
While at Gettysburg, Morgan worked in the lab of Dr. Steve James investigating oncogenic cell cycle regulators through the lens of fungal genetics (James et al. 2022). She utilized her skills with gene expression and transcriptional profiling at Janssen to monitor the pharmacodynamic effects of immunotherapy in patients with heme malignancies.
This sparked her interest in the mechanisms underlying cancer and immune cell interactions, and her thesis research focuses on understanding how metabolites are regulated in the tumor microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and how this impacts T cell activation and anti-tumor function.
Outside of lab, you can find Morgan hiking along Wissahickon’s popular trails, sketching, and rolling some dice with her local tabletop group.
Van is a graduate student in the Cell Biology, Physiology, and Metabolism program and joined our lab in the summer of 2023. Originally from Vietnam, she embarked on her undergraduate journey at the University of South Florida, where her fascination with biomedical research began.
Since becoming a member of the Bailis lab, Van has been captivated to explore the mechanism behind how glucose restriction primes signaling cascades to preserve the proliferative capacity in CD8+ T cells. Her focus lies particularly on unraveling the intricacies of metabolic reprogramming and mitochondrial modeling.
Outside of the lab, Van enjoys traveling, hiking, and eating good foods!
Oishi Bardhan (she/her) is a 3rd year graduate student in the Immunology Graduate Group. Her project focuses on the RNA-binding protein LARP1 and its impact on ribosomal biogenesis and fate decisions in CAR T cells. In her free time, Oishi likes going to concerts, cooking and spending time with her cat Beanie.