Rate My Professor Kazuki Nagashima

Kazuki Nagashima is Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, where he joined the faculty in August 2024. He received his M.D. and B.Sc. from the University of Tokyo (2007–2013) and completed his Ph.D. in immunology in Hiroshi Takayanagi’s laboratory at the same institution (2013–2017), investigating microfold (M) cells in the intestine and identifying a novel subset of mesenchymal cells that secrete RANKL to drive M cell differentiation. From 2017 to 2024, Nagashima served as a postdoctoral scholar in Michael Fischbach’s laboratory at Stanford University, where he developed a high-throughput platform to map T cell receptors (TCRs) to their antigens and created a defined synthetic gut microbiome consortium of over 100 bacterial strains for inoculation into germ-free mice, enabling precise dissection of host-microbe interactions.

Nagashima’s research program elucidates molecular mechanisms of the gut immune system, including T cell recognition of conserved bacterial antigens, diet-induced immune modulation, and host responses to the microbiome. His laboratory aims to uncover principles underlying immune tolerance to commensals and nutrients versus responses to pathogens, with applications to diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, and allergies. Notable publications include "Mapping the T cell repertoire to a complex gut bacterial community" (Nature, 2023), which reported antigens for 92 TCRs from the gut microbiome, and "Host defense against oral microbiota by bone-damaging T cells" (Nature Communications, 2018). Nagashima has garnered significant recognition, including the NIAID K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (2024), NOSTER & Science Microbiome Prize (2024), Charles H. Hood Foundation Child Health Research Award (2024), Aramont Fellowship for Emerging Science Research (2026), Human Frontier Science Program Long-Term Fellowship (2017–2024), and Nature Immunology Young Investigator Award (2013–2017). His contributions advance technologies for rational immunotherapeutic design and deepen understanding of microbiome-immune axis dynamics.