Chen-Hao Yeh

Dr. Yeh completed his undergraduate and Master of Science degree at the National Taiwan University in Taipei. He then pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo in Japan. He moved to Durham in 2015 for postdoctoral training in Dr. Garnett Kelsoe’s laboratory at the Duke Department of Immunology.

Dr. Yeh holds a broad academic background in biochemistry and immunology, with specific training and expertise in lymphocyte development and differentiation. His research has focused on: 1) germinal center (GC) B cell selection, differentiation and antibody affinity maturation and 2) T follicular helper (Tfh) cell differentiation and TCR repertoire analysis. 

Over the years, Dr. Yeh has demonstrated that B-cell selection based on surface pMHCII density is stringent in the establishment of GCs, but relatively relaxed during GC responses; this observation has led to fundamental revisions in the standard models for affinity-driven selection. With multiple genetic models to identify GC-resident Tfh cells in the mouse, Dr. Yeh also showed that the standard phenotypic definition of “GCTfh” included a majority of T cells that do not enter GCs. The more abundant Tfh-like cells have distinct developmental requirements, TCR repertoires and transcriptomic profiles compared to the rarer GC-resident Tfh cells, implying distinct physiologies and function. In addition, Dr. Yeh has categorized the phenotype of memory and GC B cell populations in Rhesus macaque (RM) as a step forward in understanding humoral responses in RMs and to enable isolation of live GC B cells for in vitro culture.