How tissues build, maintain, and lose their cellular neighborhoods
Tissues have to stay organized for decades while their cells die and are replaced. Macrophages are central to this. They clear dying cells, repair damage, and occupy defined niches beside vessels and stem cells. We study how those niches are established, how they are maintained, and why they fail with age and injury.
We watch immune cells directly in living mice using multiphoton intravital microscopy, and combine it with mouse genetics, spatial and single-cell transcriptomics, and quantitative image analysis. Our goal is to uncover the rules that govern tissue composition across life, and to use them to explain why some wounds regenerate while others scar, and why aging tissues lose the capacity to repair themselves.
The Mesa Lab is part of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.
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