Christopher Joel Russo

PhD Student

cjrusso@uchicago.edu

409 Erman Hall
1103 E 57th St‎.
Chicago, IL 60637

Curriculum Vitae
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Despite extensive theoretical and experimental work on processes of somatic B cell receptor diversification and evolution, the germline evolution of the library of alleles that recombine to form the naive repertoire is largely unexplored. In my work, I am focused on understanding whether and in what contexts we expect adaptive evolution of biases in the naive repertoire in antigenic shape space to target specific antigens, and how the selective pressure for such biases would manifest in the evolution of the immunoglobulin alleles, which do not directly encode receptors.

In my spare time, I enjoy cooking, reading, especially about history and architecture, and exploring Chicago’s many beautiful neighborhoods and parks.