Rate My Professor Ryan Nelson

Ryan Nelson, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Pediatric Rheumatology, Allergy, and Immunology in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Twin Cities campus. A graduate of the University of Minnesota's Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) and Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology (MICaB) program, he entered in 2009, defended his PhD dissertation titled 'The Origin and Function of a Large Naive CD4+ T Cell Population' in 2014 under advisor Marc Jenkins, and earned his PhD in 2014 and MD in 2016. Prior to his graduate training, he received a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2007. Following medical school, Nelson completed his pediatrics residency and Allergy/Immunology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he also served as an Instructor of Pediatrics. He then conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. Andrew Luster at Massachusetts General Hospital, focusing on human T-cell biology and allergen-specific immunity. In April 2024, he rejoined the University of Minnesota as a physician-scientist in the Department of Pediatrics and the Center for Immunology. During his graduate training, he received an NIH/NIDDK F30 fellowship (DK093242) from 2011 to 2015.

Nelson's research expertise centers on CD4+ T cell specificity, memory cell formation, functional diversity, trafficking, and persistence. His work bridges basic immunology with clinical applications in primary immunodeficiencies, immune dysregulation disorders, and allergic diseases, aiming to elucidate human variability in adaptive immunity and maladaptive responses to allergens and self-tissues. Key publications from his doctoral research include 'Specific patterns of self-antigen expression determine the mechanisms by which polyclonal self-reactive CD4+ T cells are tolerized' (2016), 'Tolerance is established in polyclonal CD4+ T cells by distinct mechanisms, according to self-peptide expression patterns' (2016), 'The Neonatal CD4+ T Cell Response to a Single Epitope Varies in Genetically Identical Mice' (2015), 'T Cell Receptor Cross-Reactivity between Similar Foreign and Self Peptides Influences Naive Cell Population Size and Autoimmunity' (2014), 'Single Naive CD4+ T Cells from a Diverse Repertoire Produce Different Effector Cell Types during Infection' (2013), and 'CD4+ T Cell Persistence and Function after Infection Are Maintained by Low-Level Peptide:MHC Class II Presentation' (2013). He is actively recruiting postdoctoral associates to his laboratory.