Dr. Nicholas (Nick) Adams is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology (MBI) and an Associate Member in the Institute for Immunological Sciences at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Nick obtained his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from Yale University. Nick completed his Ph.D. with Dr. Joseph Sun at the Gerstner Sloan Kettering (GSK) Graduate School as part of the Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program. His thesis research yielded fundamental insights into the molecular mechanisms governing the antiviral response of natural killer cells.

For his postdoctoral training, Nick joined the lab of Dr. Boris Reizis at New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine and later the University of Chicago, where he studied the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of dendritic cell (DC) development and function. There he identified multi-level chromatin regulation at the type I interferon (IFN-I) locus as an essential, cell type-specific adaptation for the potent IFN-I response of plasmacytoid DCs. In parallel, Nick uncovered the transcription factor Etv3 as a specific regulator of DC maturation and tolerogenic function in the steady state. Nick’s research interests are grounded in understanding the molecular regulation and mechanisms of DC-mediated immune tolerance and function.

Over the course of his training, Nick’s research has been supported by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellowship Award, the NYU Bernard Levine Program for Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Immunology, the NIH/NIAID F30 Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Predoctoral National Research Service Award, and the GSK Grayer Fellowship. Nick’s research at Rochester is supported by an NIH/NIAID K22 Career Transition Award.