The Brunner Lab at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Our Mission

Cutaneous lymphomas are a diverse group of diseases that can be challenging to diagnose, are increasingly prevalent, and often lack sufficiently safe and effective treatment modalities, representing a significant unmet patient need. While many primary cutaneous lymphomas are indolent, meaning that they only show slow development or even spontaneous resolution of individual lesions, some progress to advanced-stage disease, drastically reducing the overall survival for patients affected. However, underlying mechanisms still remain only insufficiently understood. With our research, we want to better understand what makes a cutaneous lymphoma indolent vs. aggressive, and harness this information for better treatment approaches. We also want to improve diagnostic tools, as currently, it takes a median of three to six years from the first appearance of a lesion, until a proper diagnosis can be made. By studying cutaneous lymphomas, we can also learn many important aspects of overall skin immunobiology and leukocyte trafficking in this fascinating organ, to increase our general understanding of skin immune-homeostasis.

Our Approach

We seek to better understand cutaneous lymphomas by studying actual human disease. Novel technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing, single-cell ATAC-seq, spatial transcriptomics as well as proteomic multiplex assays now allow the characterization of small skin and blood samples at unprecedented depth. These data are then integrated with cutting-edge bioinformatics tools, and validated in independent patient samples. By using such a multi-omics approach, we want to characterize drivers of disease, to ultimately help develop novel treatment approaches, to better serve this patient community.