ASSISTANT PROFESSOR Medicine, Clinical Immunology

http://www.mountsinai.org/profiles/minji-byun#bio Biography Dr. Minji Byun earned her B.S. at Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea, and PhD at Washington University in St. Louis. After postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University, she became a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis. In 2017, she was recruited to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to join the Precision Immunology Institute. Her research interest is in defining genetic factors underlying susceptibility to rare immune disorders including primary immunodeficiency, autoimmune diseases, and autoinflammatory diseases. http://www.mountsinai.org/profiles/minji-byun#awards Awards 2012 Senior Fellowship in Biomedical Science - Charles H. Revson Foundation 2012 Young Investigator Award - Asian Society for Pediatric Research 2010 Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship - Cancer Research Institute http://www.mountsinai.org/profiles/minji-byun#researchdetails Research The Byun lab investigates genetic predisposition to rare immune disorders. Current disease interests include, but are not limited to, Kawasaki disease, an acute systemic vasculitis primarily affecting children, and idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease, a rare lymphoproliferative disorder affecting people of all ages. What causes these immune-mediated diseases is poorly understood. We hypothesize that genetic variants – both inborn and acquired – influence susceptibility to these disorders. The goal of our research is to identify and functionally characterize rare, highly penetrant disease-predisposing variants, thereby shedding light on the pathogenic mechanisms of these potentially deadly diseases.