Immunology and Immunogenetics Insights

Jennifer Nyland joined the faculty at the University of South Carolina under the Faculty Excellence Initiative program in 2008 as an Assistant Professor following a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received her Ph.D. in immunology in 2003 from State University of New York Upstate Medical University and her B.A. in chemistry from Cornell University in 1992.

Dr. Nyland’s research interests include research on the relationship between environmental toxicants and autoimmune disease. She has utilized an animal (mouse) model of virus-induced autoimmune heart disease to study mechanisms of mercury-induced exacerbation of innate immune responses. Dr. Nyland has utilized in vitro techniques to study mercury-induced changes in the response of human immune cells in terms of their cytokine production. She has used epidemiological methods to evaluate the relationship between mercury exposure (inorganic mercury via occupational exposure or methyl mercury through contaminated fish consumption) and biomarkers of autoimmune dysfunction and/or diagnosis of autoimmune disease. A more recent focus in her lab is the epigenetic/gene expression changes induced in the immune system following prenatal mercury exposure. Beyond mercury, she has examined the impact of exposure to nanoparticles in vitro on cells of the immune system, the effects of arsenic exposure on diabetes and lipid metabolism, and the modulation of macrophages/microglia inflammation in Gulf War Illness and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr. Nyland has been invited to participate in National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences expert panels and to present her research at numerous national and international meetings. She was a 2010 Environmental Health Sciences Communication Fellow for Environmental Health News. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the University of SC Magellan Scholar Program, the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Research Development Fund, the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University, and the Institute for NanoBio Technology at Johns Hopkins University.

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