Luo Lab @ Oxford

Research

We are a research group working to understand how genetics shapes the immune system and its role in human health. Our main focus is the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a key genomic region that helps our immune system recognize and respond to disease. For many immune-related conditions, variation in the MHC contributes more to risk than all other parts of the genome combined. Yet the biological reasons for this remain unclear.

To address these questions, we use large-scale health resources such as the UK Biobank, China Kadoorie Biobank, and the Mexico City Prospective Study. We also integrate multiple layers of biological data, including gene activity (transcriptomics), protein levels (proteomics), and T cell receptor (TCR) repertoires, to uncover how genetic variation leads to disease.

Our ultimate goal is to connect genetic discoveries with their underlying molecular mechanisms, paving the way for better understanding, prevention, and treatment of immune-related diseases.

Selected Publications

2025

Esther S. Ng, Gusztav Milotay, Orion Tong, Chelsea A. Taylor, Shawn Sun, Guangyi Niu, Robert Watson, Bo Sun, Sophie MacKay, James J. Gilchrist, Martin Little, Benjamin P. Fairfax, Yang Luo
2025
Science Advances  ·  2025
Jennifer Astley, Andrew Kwok, Benjamin Hollis, , Calliope A. Dendrou, Steve Sansom, Julian C. Knight, Alexander J Mentzer, Yang Luo, Luke Jostins-Dean
2025
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory  ·  2025

2024

Yang Luo, Chuan-Chin Huang, Nicole C Howard, Xin Wang, Qingyun Liu, Xinyi Li, Junhao Zhu, Tiffany Amariuta, Samira Asgari, Kazuyoshi Ishigaki, Roger Calderon, Sahadevan Raman, Alexandrea K Ramnarine, Jacob A Mayfield, D Branch Moody, Leonid Lecca, Sarah M Fortune, Megan B Murray, Soumya Raychaudhuri
2024
Nature communications  ·  2024
Yang Luo, Simon Stent
2024
Nature  ·  2024
Zhiwei Liu, Yang Luo, Samuel Kirimunda, Murielle Verboom, Olusegun O. Onabajo, Mateus H. Gouveia, Martin D. Ogwang, Patrick Kerchan, Steven J. Reynolds, Constance N. Tenge, Pamela A. Were, Robert T. Kuremu, Walter N. Wekesa, Nestory Masalu, Esther Kawira, Tobias Kinyera, Isaac Otim, Ismail D. Legason, Hadijah Nabalende, Herry Dhudha, Leona W. Ayers, Kishor Bhatia, James J. Goedert, Nathan Cole, Wen Luo, Jia Liu, Michelle Manning, Belynda Hicks, Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson, George Chagaluka, W. Thomas Johnston, Nora Mutalima, Eric Borgstein, George N. Liomba, Steve Kamiza, Nyengo Mkandawire, Collins Mitambo, Elizabeth M. Molyneux, Robert Newton, Ann W. Hsing, James E. Mensah, Anthony A. Adjei, Amy Hutchinson, Mary Carrington, Meredith Yeager, Rainer Blasczyk, Stephen J. Chanock, Soumya Raychaudhuri, Sam M. Mbulaiteye
2024
Communications Biology  ·  2024

2023

Joyce B. Kang, Amber Z. Shen, Saisriram Gurajala, Aparna Nathan, Laurie Rumker, Vitor R. C. Aguiar, Cristian Valencia, Kaitlyn A. Lagattuta, Fan Zhang, Anna Helena Jonsson, Seyhan Yazar, Jose Alquicira-Hernandez, Hamed Khalili, Ashwin N. Ananthakrishnan, Karthik Jagadeesh, Kushal Dey, , Jennifer Albrecht, William Apruzzese, Nirmal Banda, Jennifer L. Barnas, Joan M. Bathon, Ami Ben-Artzi, Brendan F. Boyce, David L. Boyle, S. Louis Bridges, Vivian P. Bykerk, Debbie Campbell, Hayley L. Carr, Arnold Ceponis, Adam Chicoine, Andrew Cordle, Michelle Curtis, Kevin D. Deane, Edward DiCarlo, Patrick Dunn, Andrew Filer, Gary S. Firestein, Lindsy Forbess, Laura Geraldino-Pardilla, Susan M. Goodman, Ellen M. Gravallese, Peter K. Gregersen, Joel M. Guthridge, V. Michael Holers, Diane Horowitz, Laura B. Hughes, Kazuyoshi Ishigaki, Lionel B. Ivashkiv, Judith A. James, Gregory Keras, Ilya Korsunsky, Amit Lakhanpal, James A. Lederer, Myles Lewis, Zhihan J. Li, Yuhong Li, Katherine P. Liao, Arthur M. Mandelin, Ian Mantel, Kathryne E. Marks, Mark Maybury, Andrew McDavid, Mandy J. McGeachy, Joseph Mears, Nida Meednu, Nghia Millard, Larry W. Moreland, Saba Nayar, Alessandra Nerviani, Dana E. Orange, Harris Perlman, Costantino Pitzalis, Javier Rangel-Moreno, Karim Raza, Yakir Reshef, Christopher Ritchlin, Felice Rivellese, William H. Robinson, Ilfita Sahbudin, Anvita Singaraju, Jennifer A. Seifert, Kamil Slowikowski, Melanie H. Smith, Darren Tabechian, Dagmar Scheel-Toellner, Paul J. Utz, Gerald F. M. Watts, Kevin Wei, Kathryn Weinand, Dana Weisenfeld, Michael H. Weisman, Aaron Wyse, Qian Xiao, Zhu Zhu, Mark J. Daly, Ramnik J. Xavier, Laura T. Donlin, Jennifer H. Anolik, Joseph E. Powell, Deepak A. Rao, Michael B. Brenner, Maria Gutierrez-Arcelus, Yang Luo, Saori Sakaue, Soumya Raychaudhuri
2023
Nature Genetics  ·  2023

2022

Kazuyoshi Ishigaki, Kaitlyn A. Lagattuta, Yang Luo, Eddie A. James, Jane H. Buckner, Soumya Raychaudhuri
2022
Nature Genetics  ·  2022

2021

Yang Luo, Masahiro Kanai, Wanson Choi, Xinyi Li, Saori Sakaue, Kenichi Yamamoto, Kotaro Ogawa, Maria Gutierrez-Arcelus, Peter K. Gregersen, Philip E. Stuart, James T. Elder, Lukas Forer, Sebastian Schönherr, Christian Fuchsberger, Albert V. Smith, Jacques Fellay, Mary Carrington, David W. Haas, Xiuqing Guo, Nicholette D. Palmer, Yii-Der Ida Chen, Jerome I. Rotter, Kent D. Taylor, Stephen S. Rich, Adolfo Correa, James G. Wilson, Sekar Kathiresan, Michael H. Cho, Andres Metspalu, Tonu Esko, Yukinori Okada, Buhm Han, , Namiko Abe, Gonçalo Abecasis, Francois Aguet, Christine Albert, Laura Almasy, Alvaro Alonso, Seth Ament, Peter Anderson, Pramod Anugu, Deborah Applebaum-Bowden, Kristin Ardlie, Dan Arking, Donna K. Arnett, Allison Ashley-Koch, Stella Aslibekyan, Tim Assimes, Paul Auer, Dimitrios Avramopoulos, Najib Ayas, Adithya Balasubramanian, John Barnard, Kathleen Barnes, R. Graham Barr, Emily Barron-Casella, Lucas Barwick, Terri Beaty, Gerald Beck, Diane Becker, Lewis Becker, Rebecca Beer, Amber Beitelshees, Emelia Benjamin, Takis Benos, Marcos Bezerra, Larry Bielak, Joshua Bis, Thomas Blackwell, John Blangero, Eric Boerwinkle, Donald W. Bowden, Russell Bowler, Jennifer Brody, Ulrich Broeckel, Jai Broome, Deborah Brown, Karen Bunting, Esteban Burchard, Carlos Bustamante, Erin Buth, Brian Cade, Jonathan Cardwell, Vincent Carey, Julie Carrier, Cara Carty, Richard Casaburi, Juan P. Casas Romero, James Casella, Peter Castaldi, Mark Chaffin, Christy Chang, Yi-Cheng Chang, Daniel Chasman, Sameer Chavan, Bo-Juen Chen, Wei-Min Chen, Seung Hoan Choi, Lee-Ming Chuang, Mina Chung, Ren-Hua Chung, Clary Clish, Suzy Comhair, Matthew Conomos, Elaine Cornell, Carolyn Crandall, James Crapo, L. Adrienne Cupples, Joanne Curran, Jeffrey Curtis, Brian Custer, Coleen Damcott, Dawood Darbar, Sean David, Colleen Davis, Michelle Daya, Mariza de Andrade, Lisa de las Fuentes, Paul de Vries, Michael DeBaun, Ranjan Deka, Dawn DeMeo, Scott Devine, Huyen Dinh, Harsha Doddapaneni, Qing Duan, Shannon Dugan-Perez, Ravi Duggirala, Jon Peter Durda, Susan K. Dutcher, Charles Eaton, Lynette Ekunwe, Adel El Boueiz, Patrick Ellinor, Leslie Emery, Serpil Erzurum, Charles Farber, Jesse Farek, Tasha Fingerlin, Matthew Flickinger, Myriam Fornage, Nora Franceschini, Chris Frazar, Mao Fu, Stephanie M. Fullerton, Lucinda Fulton, Stacey Gabriel, Weiniu Gan, Shanshan Gao, Yan Gao, Margery Gass, Heather Geiger, Bruce Gelb, Mark Geraci, Soren Germer, Robert Gerszten, Auyon Ghosh, Richard Gibbs, Chris Gignoux, Mark Gladwin, David Glahn, Stephanie Gogarten, Da-Wei Gong, Harald Goring, Sharon Graw, Kathryn J. Gray, Daniel Grine, Colin Gross, C. Charles Gu, Yue Guan, Namrata Gupta, David M. Haas, Jeff Haessler, Michael Hall, Yi Han, Patrick Hanly, Daniel Harris, Nicola L. Hawley, Jiang He, Ben Heavner, Susan Heckbert, Ryan Hernandez, David Herrington, Craig Hersh, Bertha Hidalgo, James Hixson, Brian Hobbs, John Hokanson, Elliott Hong, Karin Hoth, Chao Hsiung, Jianhong Hu, Yi-Jen Hung, Haley Huston, Chii Min Hwu, Marguerite Ryan Irvin, Rebecca Jackson, Deepti Jain, Cashell Jaquish, Jill Johnsen, Andrew Johnson, Craig Johnson, Rich Johnston, Kimberly Jones, Hyun Min Kang, Robert Kaplan, Sharon Kardia, Shannon Kelly, Eimear Kenny, Michael Kessler, Alyna Khan, Ziad Khan, Wonji Kim, John Kimoff, Greg Kinney, Barbara Konkle, Charles Kooperberg, Holly Kramer, Christoph Lange, Ethan Lange, Leslie Lange, Cathy Laurie, Cecelia Laurie, Meryl LeBoff, Jiwon Lee, Sandra Lee, Wen-Jane Lee, Jonathon LeFaive, David Levine, Dan Levy, Joshua Lewis, Xiaohui Li, Yun Li, Henry Lin, Honghuang Lin, Xihong Lin, Simin Liu, Yongmei Liu, Yu Liu, Ruth J. F. Loos, Steven Lubitz, Kathryn Lunetta, James Luo, Ulysses Magalang, Michael Mahaney, Barry Make, Ani Manichaikul, Alisa Manning, JoAnn Manson, Lisa Martin, Melissa Marton, Susan Mathai, Rasika Mathias, Susanne May, Patrick McArdle, Merry-Lynn McDonald, Sean McFarland, Stephen McGarvey, Daniel McGoldrick, Caitlin McHugh, Becky McNeil, Hao Mei, James Meigs, Vipin Menon, Luisa Mestroni, Ginger Metcalf, Deborah A. Meyers, Emmanuel Mignot, Julie Mikulla, Nancy Min, Mollie Minear, Ryan L. Minster, Braxton D. Mitchell, Matt Moll, Zeineen Momin, May E. Montasser, Courtney Montgomery, Donna Muzny, Josyf C. Mychaleckyj, Girish Nadkarni, Rakhi Naik, Take Naseri, Pradeep Natarajan, Sergei Nekhai, Sarah C. Nelson, Bonnie Neltner, Caitlin Nessner, Deborah Nickerson, Osuji Nkechinyere, Kari North, Jeff O’Connell, Tim O’Connor, Heather Ochs-Balcom, Geoffrey Okwuonu, Allan Pack, David T. Paik, James Pankow, George Papanicolaou, Cora Parker, Gina Peloso, Juan Manuel Peralta, Marco Perez, James Perry, Ulrike Peters, Patricia Peyser, Lawrence S. Phillips, Jacob Pleiness, Toni Pollin, Wendy Post, Julia Powers Becker, Meher Preethi Boorgula, Michael Preuss, Bruce Psaty, Pankaj Qasba, Dandi Qiao, Zhaohui Qin, Nicholas Rafaels, Laura Raffield, Mahitha Rajendran, Vasan S. Ramachandran, D. C. Rao, Laura Rasmussen-Torvik, Aakrosh Ratan, Susan Redline, Robert Reed, Catherine Reeves, Elizabeth Regan, Alex Reiner, Muagututi’a Sefuiva Reupena, Ken Rice, Rebecca Robillard, Nicolas Robine, Dan Roden, Carolina Roselli, Ingo Ruczinski, Alexi Runnels, Pamela Russell, Sarah Ruuska, Kathleen Ryan, Ester Cerdeira Sabino, Danish Saleheen, Shabnam Salimi, Sejal Salvi, Steven Salzberg, Kevin Sandow, Vijay G. Sankaran, Jireh Santibanez, Karen Schwander, David Schwartz, Frank Sciurba, Christine Seidman, Jonathan Seidman, Frédéric Sériès, Vivien Sheehan, Stephanie L. Sherman, Amol Shetty, Aniket Shetty, Wayne Hui-Heng Sheu, M. Benjamin Shoemaker, Brian Silver, Edwin Silverman, Robert Skomro, Jennifer Smith, Josh Smith, Nicholas Smith, Tanja Smith, Sylvia Smoller, Beverly Snively, Michael Snyder, Tamar Sofer, Nona Sotoodehnia, Adrienne M. Stilp, Garrett Storm, Elizabeth Streeten, Jessica Lasky Su, Yun Ju Sung, Jody Sylvia, Adam Szpiro, Daniel Taliun, Hua Tang, Margaret Taub, Matthew Taylor, Simeon Taylor, Marilyn Telen, Timothy A. Thornton, Machiko Threlkeld, Lesley Tinker, David Tirschwell, Sarah Tishkoff, Hemant Tiwari, Catherine Tong, Russell Tracy, Michael Tsai, Dhananjay Vaidya, David Van Den Berg, Peter VandeHaar, Scott Vrieze, Tarik Walker, Robert Wallace, Avram Walts, Fei Fei Wang, Heming Wang, Jiongming Wang, Karol Watson, Jennifer Watt, Daniel E. Weeks, Joshua Weinstock, Bruce Weir, Scott T. Weiss, Lu-Chen Weng, Jennifer Wessel, Cristen Willer, Kayleen Williams, L. Keoki Williams, Carla Wilson, James Wilson, Lara Winterkorn, Quenna Wong, Joseph Wu, Huichun Xu, Lisa Yanek, Ivana Yang, Ketian Yu, Seyedeh Maryam Zekavat, Yingze Zhang, Snow Xueyan Zhao, Wei Zhao, Xiaofeng Zhu, Michael Zody, Sebastian Zoellner, Paul J. McLaren, Soumya Raychaudhuri
2021
Nature Genetics  ·  2021
Yang Luo, Xinyi Li, Xin Wang, Steven Gazal, Josep Maria Mercader, 23 and Me Research Team, SIGMA Type 2 Diabetes Consortium, Benjamin M Neale, Jose C Florez, Adam Auton, Alkes L Price, Hilary K Finucane, Soumya Raychaudhuri
2021
Human molecular genetics  ·  2021

2020

Samira Asgari, Yang Luo, Ali Akbari, Gillian M. Belbin, Xinyi Li, Daniel N. Harris, Martin Selig, Eric Bartell, Roger Calderon, Kamil Slowikowski, Carmen Contreras, Rosa Yataco, Jerome T. Galea, Judith Jimenez, Julia M. Coit, Chandel Farroñay, Rosalynn M. Nazarian, Timothy D. O’Connor, Harry C. Dietz, Joel N. Hirschhorn, Heinner Guio, Leonid Lecca, Eimear E. Kenny, Esther E. Freeman, Megan B. Murray, Soumya Raychaudhuri
2020
Nature  ·  2020

2019

Yang Luo, Sara Suliman, Samira Asgari, Tiffany Amariuta, Yuriy Baglaenko, Marta Martínez-Bonet, Kazuyoshi Ishigaki, Maria Gutierrez-Arcelus, Roger Calderon, Leonid Lecca, Segundo R. León, Judith Jimenez, Rosa Yataco, Carmen Contreras, Jerome T. Galea, Mercedes Becerra, Sergey Nejentsev, Peter A. Nigrovic, D. Branch Moody, Megan B. Murray, Soumya Raychaudhuri
2019
Nature Communications  ·  2019