With the Twitter handle @TCellTracker, Jillian Richmond, PhD, conveys her passion for her work. Her explorations into T cells’ role in infection, inflammation and cancer take her from the bench to the bedside. Dr. Richmond and her colleagues aim to develop diagnostics and new therapies for lymphoma, osteosarcoma, and more.
Teaming up with veterinarians at the Cummings School of Tufts Veterinary Medicine, she studies gene expression patterns on canine cancer tissue. In doing so, she furthers the understanding of cell communication patterns in tumors to help both dogs and people. She also lends her expertise to collaborators developing T cell vaccines directed against tumors. Most recently, she and her collaborators at Howard University College of Medicine are tackling health disparities in cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL).
A natural-born teacher, Dr. Richmond takes the role of training the next generation to heart. In addition to hosting graduate students, medical students and post-doctoral fellows, Dr. Richmond also welcomes high school and college students to her lab and gears the content of some of her publications to tweens.
She has flourished since joining the UMass Chan faculty in 2019, taking home awards—for research and mentorship alike.
Did you start as a cancer researcher? If not, what led you to work on cancer-related research topics?
I trained in immunology and pathology at Boston University School of Medicine, focusing on T cell migration using tuberculosis as an infectious disease model and CTCL as a cancer model. Injured tissues [such as tumors] release chemokines that attract T cells to ward off disease. I started a side project studying a specific chemokine in CTCL and I continue to study that type of cancer today. I have seen how much T cell immunotherapies for cancer have progressed since my time in graduate school – it is a very exciting field!
Congratulations on the grant you received from the Skin of Color Society (SOCS). Can you tell us what questions you will explore with these funds?
I’m working with Angel Byrd, MD, PhD, and Ginette Okoye, MD, FAAD, to try to find better biomarkers for CTCL. The ones we have now are designed to detect the disease in Caucasian men over 65 because that is the demographic that was originally thought to be most affected. However, in Dr. Okoye’s clinic, she noticed that some young Black women were presenting with advanced stages of CTCL. It seems that in darker-skinned patients, CTCL can mimic other skin conditions like vitiligo or psoriasis, delaying diagnosis.
We're now studying gene expression patterns specifically in younger skin of color patients affected by CTCL to determine whether they are the same patterns found in older white patients. If they are not the same, we aim to update the biomarkers we use for diagnosis. Our goal is to be able to collect a biopsy and quickly look at the cells under a microscope—a histological analysis–to see whether the patient has CTCL. Getting this information in a timely way will ultimately shorten the path to chemo, should the treatment be needed.
You are passionate about comparative immunology. Can you explain what it is?
Comparative immunology studies the similarities and differences in the immune system in different animals and humans. I have been analyzing archival tissue in canines with veterinary dermatologist Ramón Almela, DVM, PhD, at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and with pathologist Nicholas Robinson, BVSc, PhD, (formerly at Tufts). We use leftover tissue collected from pet dogs that were being treated in the clinic. This approach allows us to minimize the number of animals used in our research and helps us find the strongest gene signals driving a particular immune response or cancer. For example, a molecular pathway that is conserved in a tumor in both dogs and people would be a strong candidate to target for developing treatments. Our comparative immunology method follows the “One Health” approach, which takes into account the intersection of environment, animal and human health to better understand health and disease states.
You are also involved with other researchers at Tufts that conduct clinical trials on canines. What is your role in that work?
Cheryl London, DVM, PhD, and Heather Gardner, DVM, PhD, who are also UMCMS Cancer Center members, conduct prospective clinical trials for cancer in canines. They invited me to collaborate with them because they are interested in developing T cell vaccines for canine tumors.
Right now, they have active clinical trials on osteosarcoma and diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL). I am particularly passionate about developing therapies for these cancers, as osteosarcoma disproportionately affects children and often results in amputation, and my grandmother passed away from DLBCL.
Drs. London and Gardner’s studies are truly translational because we can not only use the research to develop therapies for dogs, but we can also apply the results to identify potential treatments for humans. I am very excited to be a part of this team!
What is one of the most promising technologies you are using in your cancer research now?
My collaborators and I use an exciting emerging technology, spatial transcriptomics, to explore genes and pathways. This technique helps us understand how cells in the tissue or tumor communicate with each other. It gives us so much more resolution than we had before.
You are very passionate about mentoring students and have been doing so throughout the pandemic. Can you tell us about your experiences?
I worked with Jadesola “Jadé” Temitope Olayinka, a medical student at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate, and we had a very successful partnership. Since we were all remote due to COVID-19, she conducted data analyses on our studies with pathologists at Tufts. We found some specific genes in dogs that may play a key role in the canine version of CTCL—epitheliotropic lymphoma—and we are filing a patent! We are hopeful that this will ultimately allow for the development of a new diagnostic test that will work for both dogs and people to quickly identify CTCL.
Tell us about how you involve our youngest generation.
Teaching is one of my favorite parts of being a researcher. To reach young learners, I write articles for Frontiers for Young Minds with my students. We target these articles toward middle and high school students. We write the articles in plain language so they are accessible to anyone. Our latest one is on pediatric melanoma.
Aside from teaching, what is the most enjoyable part of your job as a researcher?
I love solving puzzles, and the immune system is my favorite puzzle to work on!
About Jillian Richmond, PhD
Jillian Richmond, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Dermatology at the UMass Chan Medical School. She earned her PhD in Immunology and Pathology at Boston University.
