The Immune Disease Institute (IDI) would like to welcome Dr. Hao Wu who is planning to join IDI, the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, and the Department of Medicine at Children's Hospital in July of 2012.  Dr. Wu has been nominated to serve as the Springer Family endowed Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and as Professor Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Wu has been a Professor of Biochemistry and Structural Biology at Weill Cornell Medical College since 1997.  Her research has been focused on innate immune receptors, the Toll-like receptor (TLR) and the tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR) superfamilies, which function through induction of NF-kB and apoptosis, and whose malfunctioning is associated with inflammatory diseases and cancer.  Her lab aims to elucidate the physical principles by which cells take these receptor activation signals and transform them to appropriate cellular responses. Through visualization of the signaling complexes at molecular level, analysis of the biophysics of the interactions, and translation of in vitro observations to cellular insights, she strives to understand the properties that the physical interactions confer to the signaling systems on a cellular level.   Dr. Wu's laboratory will be located on the third floor of the CLSB building in close proximity to the PCMM labs of Timothy Springer, Sun Hur, and Wesley Wong, as well as the Molecular Medicine labs of Steve Harrison, providing CHB with one of the leading clusters of structural biologists in the country.