{"id":301,"date":"2021-09-16T21:52:34","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T01:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/?page_id=301"},"modified":"2026-07-03T11:30:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:30:56","slug":"leena-abdullah","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/lab-members\/former-members\/leena-abdullah\/","title":{"rendered":"Leena Abdullah, PhD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a id=\"set-post-thumbnail\" class=\"thickbox\" href=\"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-admin\/media-upload.php?post_id=301&amp;type=image&amp;TB_iframe=1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-266x266 size-266x266 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/09\/20210821_145032-e1631843495365.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"266\" \/><\/a>Currently:<\/strong> Scientist at Insmed Inc.<br \/>\nMCB alumna (Huang Lab)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"hide-if-no-js\"><strong>About Me<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Leena is originally from Pakistan and became interested in research during her high school days after watching a presentation on the discovery of the Higgs boson particle. Following her dream of one day becoming a scientist she received a bachelor\u2019s degree in biology from Lahore University of Management Sciences. She graduated with high distinction and a gold medal award for being top of her class in 2018. In the Huang Lab, her project focuses on commitment to the T cell fate. In her project she uses a lineage tracing tool along with genome-wide analysis to understand how B and T cells develop in the thymus. Outside of lab, Leena enjoys listening to music and watching movies especially Marvel and horror movies. She also loves teaching and wants to make it part of her future career.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Publications<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ferry SL, <strong>Abdullah L<\/strong>, Balasubramanian A, Nowak E, Carl A, Turnquist A, Mohamed AO, Usherwood EJ, Sundrud M, Huang YH. Systemic pre-conditioning favors effector over exhausted CD8 T cell subsets following Sup2-IL33 armored CAR T cell therapy. <em>J Immunother Cancer<\/em> 2026 Jun 3;14(6):e013020. doi: 10.1136\/jitc-2025-013020.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abdullah L<\/strong>, Emiliani FE, Vaidya CM, Stuart H, Musial SC, Kolling FW, Obar JJ, Rosato PC, Ackerman ME, Song L, McKenna A, Huang YH. The endogenous antigen-specific CD8+ T cell repertoire is composed of unbiased and biased clonotypes with differential fate commitments. <em>Immunity<\/em> 2025 58(3):601-615.e9. doi: 10.1016\/j.immuni.2025.02.001. PubMed PMID: 40020673.<\/p>\n<p>Fagerberg E, Attanasio J, Dien C, Singh J, Kessler EA, <strong>Abdullah L<\/strong>, Shen J, Hunt BG, Connolly KA, De Brouwer E, He J, Iyer N, Buck J, Borr ER, Damo M, Foster GG, Giles JR, Huang YH, Tsang JS, Krishnaswamy S, Cui W, Joshi NS. KLF2 maintains lineage fidelity and suppresses CD8 T cell exhaustion during acute LCMV infection. <em>Science<\/em> 2025 Jan 2;387(6735):eadn2337. doi: 10.1126\/science.adn2337. Epub 2025 Feb 14. PMID: 39946463<\/p>\n<p>Brog RA, Ferry SL, Schiebout CT, Messier CM, Cook WJ, <strong>Abdullah L<\/strong>, Zou J, Kumar P, Sentman CL, Frost HR, Huang YH. Superkine IL2 and IL33 armored CAR T cells reshape the tumor microenvironment and reduce growth of multiple solid tumors. <em>Cancer Immunol Res<\/em>. Epub 20220613. doi: 10.1158\/2326-6066.CIR-21-0536. PubMed PMID: 35696724.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Abdullah L<\/strong>, Hills LB, Winter EB, Huang YH. Diverse Roles of Akt in T cells. <em>Immunometabolism<\/em>. 2021;3(1):e210007. doi: 10.20900\/immunometab20210007. PMID: 33604081<\/p>\n<p>Hills LB, <strong>Abdullah L<\/strong>, Lust HE, Degefu H, Huang YH. Foxo1 Serine 209 Is a Critical Regulatory Site of CD8 T Cell Differentiation and Survival. <em>J Immunol.<\/em> 2021 <strong>206<\/strong>(1):89-100. doi: 10.4049\/jimmunol.2000216. PMID: 33229443<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Currently: Scientist at Insmed Inc. MCB alumna (Huang Lab) &nbsp; About Me Leena is originally from Pakistan and became interested in research during her high school days after watching a presentation on the discovery of the Higgs boson particle. Following her dream of one day becoming a scientist she received [\u2026] <\/p>\n<div class=\"clear\"><\/div>\n<p><a class=\"more_link clearfix\" href=\"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/lab-members\/former-members\/leena-abdullah\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":313,"parent":95,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-301","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","author-37"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/301\/revisions\/535"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/95"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geiselmed.dartmouth.edu\/huang\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}