Aakanksha Jain, Ph.D.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, IMMUNOLOGY

Dr. Jain graduated with a Bachelor of Technology from National Institute of Technology, Warangal, India in 2012. She received her Ph.D. in 2019 from UT Southwestern Medical Center under the supervision of Dr. Chandrashekhar Pasare. She completed her postdoctoral training in Dr. Clifford Woolf’s lab at Boston Children’s Hospital studying on neuroimmune interactions in pain. Dr. Jain joined the University of Washington, Department of Immunology as an assistant professor in 2025.

RESEARCH

Exploring the Neuroimmune Interface in Pain and Inflammation

At the Jain Lab, we investigate how the nervous and immune systems communicate to maintain health—and how this dialogue can go awry to cause chronic pain and inflammation. Our research focuses on the neuroimmune mechanisms that underlie these conditions, with the goal of uncovering how protective responses like pain and immunity become pathological.

We are particularly interested in nociceptors—specialized sensory neurons that sense noxious stimuli or injury. These neurons not only signal pain but also influence immune responses through the release of neuropeptides. Using single-cell transcriptomics, flow cytometry, neuronal imaging, and behavioral assays in mouse models, we identify and functionally validate key molecular interactions between immune cells and neurons. One of our recent discoveries includes the identification of Thrombospondin-1, a molecule released by myeloid cells that can suppress pain hypersensitivity following tissue injury.

Ongoing projects in the lab explore:

• How immune cells modulate sensory neuron activity in inflammatory and neuropathic pain?
• How acute neuroimmune interactions shape long-term tissue health and influence susceptibility to recurrent chronic pain and inflammation?

PUBLICATIONS

1. Hakim S, Jain A, Adamson SS, Petrova V, Indajang J, Kim HW, Kawaguchi R, Wang Q, Duran ES, Nelson D, Greene CA, Rasmussen J, Woolf CJ. Macrophages protect against sensory axon loss in peripheral neuropathy. Nature. 2025 Apr;640(8057):212-220. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08535-1. Epub 2025 Feb 12. PubMed PMID: 39939762; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11964918.
2. Jain A, Gyori BM, Hakim S, Jain A, Sun L, Petrova V, Bhuiyan SA, Zhen S, Wang Q, Kawaguchi R, Bunga S, Taub DG, Ruiz-Cantero MC, Tong-Li C, Andrews N, Kotoda M, Renthal W, Sorger PK, Woolf CJ. Nociceptor-immune interactomes reveal insult-specific immune signatures of pain. Nat Immunol. 2024 Jul;25(7):1296-1305. doi: 10.1038/s41590-024-01857-2. Epub 2024 May 28. PubMed PMID: 38806708; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11224023.
3. Jain A, Hakim S, Woolf CJ. Immune drivers of physiological and pathological pain. J Exp Med. 2024 May 6;221(5). doi: 10.1084/jem.20221687. Epub 2024 Apr 12. PubMed PMID: 38607420; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11010323.
4. McDaniel MM*, Chawla AS*, Jain A*, Meibers HE, Saha I, Gao Y, Jain V, Roskin K, Way SS, Pasare C. Effector memory CD4(+) T cells induce damaging innate inflammation and autoimmune pathology by engaging CD40 and TNFR on myeloid cells. Sci Immunol. 2022 Jan 21;7(67):eabk0182. doi: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abk0182. Epub 2022 Jan 21. PubMed PMID: 35061504; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9036191. *co-first
5. Jain A, Irizarry-Caro RA, McDaniel MM, Chawla AS, Carroll KR, Overcast GR, Philip NH, Oberst A, Chervonsky AV, Katz JD, Pasare C. T cells instruct myeloid cells to produce inflammasome-independent IL-1β and cause autoimmunity. Nat Immunol. 2020 Jan;21(1):65-74. doi: 10.1038/s41590-019-0559-y. Epub 2019 Dec 17. PubMed PMID: 31848486; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6927526.

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