Edgar Engleman

Edgar G. Engleman, MD, Professor, Department of Pathology; Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Immunology and Rheumatology, Stanford University School of Medicine 

Research Description: Dr. Engleman’s research has focused on studies of the role of different leukocyte subpopulations in disease pathogenesis, including autoimmune diseases, metabolic diseases, graft versus host disease and transplantation tolerance. Several years ago, his group discovered an unexpected increase in the frequency of T helper 1 cells in the adipose tissue of diet induced obese (DIO) mice, and proved that such cells play a critical role in the development of insulin resistance in this model. Subsequently, his group found that B cells and the antibodies they produce also play a pathogenic role in this disorder. Both of these populations overwhelm regulatory T and B cells, which normally help maintain a state of insulin sensitivity. These findings have led to a new way of thinking in the field of metabolism that may ultimately lead to important new diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic modalities for insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. In addition his work on regulation of pancreatic adenocarcinoma development in the setting of chronic pancreatic inflammation is linked to studies of type 3c diabetes, work he is actively collaborating on with other SDRC members. 

Selected relevant publications (Stanford DRC members in BOLD):

  1. Marshall PL, Nagy N, Kaber G, Barlow GL, Ramesh A, Xie BJ, Linde MH, Haddock NL, Lester CA, Tran QL, de Vries CR, Hargil A, Malkovskiy AV, Gurevich I, Martinez HA, Kuipers HF, Yadava K, Zhang X, Evanko SP, Gebe JA, Wang X, Vernon RB, de la Motte C, Wight TN, Engleman EG, Krams SM, Meyer EH, Bollyky PL. Hyaluronan synthesis inhibition impairs antigen presentation and delays transplantation rejection. Matrix Biol. 2021 Feb;96:69-86. doi: 10.1016/j.matbio.2020.12.001. PMID: 33290836. 

  2. Atallah MB, Tandon V, Hiam KJ, Boyce H, Hori M, Atallah W, Spitzer MH, Engleman E, Mallick P. ImmunoGlobe: enabling systems immunology with a manually curated intercellular immune interaction network. BMC Bioinformatics. 2020 Aug 10;21(1):346. doi: 10.1186/s12859-020-03702-3. PMID: 32778050; PMCID: PMC7430879. 

  3. Vallania F, Tam A, Lofgren S, Schaffert S, Azad TD, Bongen E, Haynes W, Alsup M, Alonso M, Davis M, Engleman E, Khatri P. Leveraging heterogeneity across multiple datasets increases cell-mixture deconvolution accuracy and reduces biological and technical biases. Nat Commun. 2018 Nov 9;9(1):4735. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07242-6. PMID: 30413720; PMCID: PMC6226523. 

  4. Marshall PL, Nagy N, Kaber G, Barlow GL, Ramesh A, Xie BJ, Linde MH, Haddock NL, Lester CA, Tran QL, de Vries CR, Hargil A, Malkovskiy AV, Gurevich I, Martinez HA, Kuipers HF, Yadava K, Zhang X, Evanko SP, Gebe JA, Wang X, Vernon RB, de la Motte C, Wight TN, Engleman EG, Krams SM, Meyer EH, Bollyky PL. Hyaluronan synthesis inhibition impairs antigen presentation and delays transplantation rejection. Matrix Biol. 2021 Feb;96:69-86. doi: 10.1016/j.matbio.2020.12.001. Epub 2020 Dec 5. PMID: 33290836; PMCID: PMC8147171. 

  5. Busque S, Scandling JD, Lowsky R, Shizuru J, Jensen K, Waters J, Wu HH, Sheehan K, Shori A, Choi O, Pham T, Fernandez Vina MA, Hoppe R, Tamaresis J, Lavori P, Engleman EG, Meyer E, Strober S. Mixed chimerism and acceptance of kidney transplants after immunosuppressive drug withdrawal. Sci Transl Med. 2020 Jan 29;12(528):eaax8863. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aax8863. PMID: 31996467; PMCID: PMC8051148. 

  6. Jensen KP, Hongo DA, Ji X, Zheng P, Pawar R, Wu TH, Busque S, Scandling JD, Shizuru JA, Lowsky R, Shori A, Dutt S, Waters J, Saraswathula A, Baker J, Tamaresis JS, Lavori P, Negrin R, Maecker H, Engleman EG, Meyer E, Strober S. Development of immunosuppressive myeloid cells to induce tolerance in solid organ and hematopoietic cell transplant recipients. Blood Adv. 2021 Sep 14;5(17):3290-3302. doi: 10.1182/bloodadvances.2020003669. PMID: 34432869; PMCID: PMC8525233. 

  7. Reticker-Flynn NE, Zhang W, Belk JA, Basto PA, Escalante NK, Pilarowski GOW, Bejnood A, Martins MM, Kenkel JA, Linde IL, Bagchi S, Yuan R, Chang S, Spitzer MH, Carmi Y, Cheng J, Tolentino LL, Choi O, Wu N, Kong CS, Gentles AJ, Sunwoo JB, Satpathy AT, Plevritis SK, Engleman EG. Lymph node colonization induces tumor-immune tolerance to promote distant metastasis. Cell. 2022 May 26;185(11):1924-1942.e23. PMID: 35525247; PMCID: PMC9149144. 

  8. Fan W, Adebowale K, Váncza L, Li Y, Rabbi MF, Kunimoto K, Chen D, Mozes G, Chiu DK, Li Y, Tao J, Wei Y, Adeniji N, Brunsing RL, Dhanasekaran R, Singhi A, Geller D, Lo SH, Hodgson L, Engleman EG, Charville GW, Charu V, Monga SP, Kim T, Wells RG, Chaudhuri O, Török NJ. Matrix viscoelasticity promotes liver cancer progression in the pre-cirrhotic liver. Nature. 2024 Feb;626(7999):635-642. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06991-9. Epub 2024 Jan 31. PMID: 38297127; PMCID: PMC10866704. 

  9. Chiu DK, Zhang X, Cheng BY, Liu Q, Hayashi K, Yu B, Lee R, Zhang C, An X, Rajadas J, Reticker-Flynn NE, Rankin EB, Engleman EG. Tumor-derived erythropoietin acts as an immunosuppressive switch in cancer immunity. Science. 2025 Apr 25;388(6745):eadr3026. doi: 10.1126/science.adr3026. Epub 2025 Apr 25. PMID: 40273234; PMCID: PMC12110762.