To carry out the Human Immunological Diseases Section (HIDS) research, our team of dedicated scientific and clinical staff studies patients using our combined expertise in genetics/genomics, molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry, and virology.
Helen Su, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief, Human Immunological Diseases Section
Specialty(s): Allergy and Immunology, Pediatrics Provides direct clinical care to patients at NIH Clinical Center
Education:
M.D., Ph.D., Brown University
Helen Su received M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Brown University. She completed training in pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Washington University, and subspecialty training in allergy and immunology at NIAID. After postdoctoral training with Michael Lenardo, M.D., in the Laboratory of Immunology, she joined the Laboratory of Host Defenses in 2007 as a tenure-track clinical investigator and was tenured in 2016. She has received the Society for Pediatric Research E. Mead Johnson Award and the Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research. She was elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Margaret A. Abaandou, R.N., B.S.N., M.P.H.
Clinical Research Nurse/Study Coordinator
Margaret Abaandou is a senior research nurse experienced in clinical research, public policy, and patient care. She is the study coordinator for two HIDS research protocols and organizes the HIDS efforts to study patients at the NIH Clinical Center.
Clifton L. Dalgard, Ph.D.
Special Volunteer
Clifton Dalgard is an Associate Professor of Anatomy, Physiology & Genetics at the Uniformed Services of the University of the Health Sciences, as well as Director of The American Genome Center. He has research interests in population genomics and neuroscience. He collaborates with the HIDS on high throughput sequencing projects including one on COVID-19 susceptibility.
Huie Jing, Ph.D.
Staff Scientist
Huie Jing is an experimentalist with deep expertise in molecular and cellular biology, genetics, virology, and human immunology. She works on diverse projects focusing on mechanism, more recently in the areas of virus sensing and G-protein physiology/signaling. She is also highly committed to teaching post-baccalaureate and other trainees in the HIDS.
Wesley Tung, B.S.
Medical Student
Education: B.S., 2019, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL
Wesley Tung, a former post-baccalaureate IRTA in the lab, is now in the Yale Medical School MSTP/NIH-OxCAM graduate program. Currently at Yale doing his preclinical MD training, he still manages to find time to work on a novel monogenic immunodeficiency first identified in the HIDS. He will be returning to the HIDS to complete part of his graduate Ph.D. research on this project.
Yu Zhang, Ph.D.
Staff Scientist
Education:
Ph.D., 2004, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Former Research Group Members
Wesley Tung, B.S. (recent Postbaccalaureate IRTA)
Elana R. Shaw, B.S. (recent Postbaccalaureate IRTA)
Kazuyuki Meguro, M.D., Ph.D. (Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow)
Hyoungjun Ham, Ph.D. (Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow)
Megan Kober, B.S. (recent Postbaccalaureate IRTA)
Michael A. Leney-Greene, Ph.D. (Predoctoral Visiting Fellow)
Ian T. Lamborn, M.D., Ph.D. (Predoctoral IRTA)
Corinne Happel, M.D. (Clinical Fellow)
Qian Zhang, Ph.D. (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)