Erika Pearce
埃里卡·皮尔斯
PhD
Director, Department of Immunometabolism免疫代谢系主任
👥Biography 个人简介
Erika Pearce is a world leader in immunometabolism who defined how metabolic programs govern T cell differentiation, memory formation, and anti-tumor function. Her landmark discoveries showed that mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation is essential for memory T cell longevity and effective cancer immunotherapy.
🧪Research Fields 研究领域
🎓Key Contributions 主要贡献
T Cell Metabolic Programming
Established that effector and memory T cells use fundamentally different metabolic programs—glycolysis versus fatty acid oxidation—and that these metabolic states determine T cell fate and function.
Mitochondrial Metabolism in Memory T Cells
Demonstrated that mitochondrial spare respiratory capacity fueled by fatty acid oxidation is essential for memory T cell longevity and rapid recall responses.
Metabolic Enhancement of Cancer Immunotherapy
Showed that manipulating T cell metabolism through mTOR inhibition or fatty acid oxidation promotes the formation of long-lived memory T cells that provide superior anti-tumor immunity.
Representative Works 代表性著作
Enhancing CD8 T-cell memory by modulating fatty acid metabolism
Nature (2009)
Landmark study demonstrating that rapamycin enhances memory T cell formation by promoting fatty acid oxidation over glycolysis.
Fueling immunity: insights into metabolism and lymphocyte function
Science (2013)
Definitive review establishing immunometabolism as a field and mapping metabolic requirements across lymphocyte subsets.
Mitochondrial dynamics controls T cell fate through metabolic programming
Cell (2016)
Revealed that mitochondrial fusion promotes memory T cell differentiation, linking organelle dynamics to immune cell fate.
🏆Awards & Recognition 奖项与荣誉
📄Data Sources 数据来源
Last updated: 2026-01-15 | All information from publicly available academic sources
Related Experts 相关专家
Matthew Vander Heiden
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lewis Cantley
Weill Cornell Medicine
Craig Thompson
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Matthew Vander Heiden
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
关注 埃里卡·皮尔斯 的研究动态
Follow Erika Pearce's research updates
留下邮箱，当我们发布与 Erika Pearce（Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics）相关的新研究或访谈时，我们会通知你。
Explore More Experts
Discover the researchers shaping the future of cancer treatment