Lisa Wagar
Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology & Biophysics
Biography
Lisa E. Wagar, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine. Wagar studies cellular, molecular, and microenvironmental mechanisms underlying human adaptive immune responses to vaccines and infectious diseases, with a focus on developing and applying human immune organoids as models of immunity. She received a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Toronto, completed postdoctoral training at Stanford University, and served as a Research Scientist at Stanford before joining UCI in 2020.
Wagar developed human tonsil organoids as a model system for studying adaptive immune responses, work that has been supported by multiple federal and foundation grants including awards from NIAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Wellcome Leap. She is PI on an NIAID R01 investigating protective adaptive immune responses to influenza antigens using human tonsil organoids, MPI on an NIAID U01 examining the impact of aging on human B cell vaccine responses, and Core PI on an NIAID U19 supporting the UCI Vaccines for Pandemic Preparedness Center. In 2022, she was one of three recipients of the inaugural Michelson Philanthropies & Science Prize for Immunology, and in 2023 received the International NC3Rs Prize sponsored by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research and GlaxoSmithKline.
Wagar has published in journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, Immunity, Cell Stem Cell, and Science Translational Medicine. She has provided ad hoc review for study sections at NIH-NIAID, the UK Medical Research Council, and other funding agencies. At UCI, she is a member of the Institute for Immunology, the Center for Virus Research, and the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and received the 2025 Outstanding Early-Career Faculty Research Award from the UCI School of Medicine.
Return to topEducation
- B.Sc. (Hons) in Biological Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), 2008
- Ph.D. in Immunology, University of Toronto, 2013
Distinctions
- International NC3Rs Prize, 2023
- Inaugural Michelson Philanthropies & Science Prize for Immunology, 2022
- Excellence in Mentoring Award, UCI Physiology & Biophysics, 2024
- Outstanding Early-Career Faculty Research Award, UCI SOM, 2025
Areas of Expertise
- Human Adaptive Immunity
- Vaccine Immunogenicity Evaluation
- Tonsil Organoid Development
- Systems Immunology Approaches
- Influenza Antigen Responses
- Aging B Cell Dynamics
- Lymphoid Tissue Microenvironments
Recent Publications
- Wagoner ZW, Yates TB, Hernandez-Davies JE, Sureshchandra S, Joloya EM, Jain A, de Assis R, Kastenschmidt JM, Sorn AM, Mitul MT, Tamburini I, Ahuja G, Zhong Q, Trask D, Seldin M, Davies DW, Wagar LE, “Systems immunology analysis of human immune organoids identifies host-specific correlates of protection to different influenza vaccines”, Cell Stem Cell, vol. 32, no. 4, pp. 529-546.e6, 2025.
- Kim SC, Felgner J, Soto MS, Hitchcock L, Hwang M, Yates TB, Cheng S, Joloya EM, Sureshchandra S, Beares H, Sorn AM, Wagoner ZW, Tifrea D, Kabeer M, Trask D, Othy S, Felgner P, Wagar LE, “Human CD4 T cells are a functional target for lipid nanoparticle-based mRNA vaccines”, mBio, vol. 16, pp. 1-15, 2025.
- Sureshchandra S., Henderson J., Levendosky E., Bhattacharyya S., Kastenschmidt J.M., Sorn A.M., Mitul M.T., Yates T.B., Cheng E., Benchorin A., Batucal K., Daugherty A., Murphy S.J.H., Thakur C., Trask D., Ahuja G., Zhong Q., Moisan A., Tiffeau-Mayer A., Saligrama N., et al., “Deep profiling of human T cells defines compartmentalized clones and phenotypic trajectories across blood and tonsils”, Immunity, vol. 58, pp. 3130-3143.e8, 2025.
- Mitul MT, Kastenschmidt JM, Sureshchandra S, Wagoner ZW, Sorn AM, McIlwain DR, Hernandez-Davies JE, Jain A, de Assis R, Trask D, Davies DH, Wagar LE, “Tissue-specific sex differences in pediatric and adult immune cell composition and function”, Frontiers in Immunology, vol. 15, pp. 1373537, 2024.
- Kastenschmidt JM, Sureshchandra S, Jain A, Hernandez-Davies JE, de Assis R, Wagoner ZW, Sorn AM, Mitul MT, Benchorin AI, Levendosky E, Ahuja G, Zhong Q, Trask D, Boeckmann J, Nakajima R, Jasinskas A, Saligrama N, Davies DH, Wagar LE, “Influenza vaccine format mediates distinct cellular and antibody responses in human immune organoids”, Immunity, vol. 56, no. 8, pp. 1910-1926.e7, 2023.
- Wagar LE, Salahudeen A, Constantz CM, Wendel BS, Lyons MM, Mallajosyula V, Jatt LP, Adamska JZ, Blum LK, Gupta N, Jackson KJL, Yang F, Röltgen K, Roskin KM, Blaine KM, Meister KD, Ahmad IN, Cortese M, Dora EG, Tucker SN, et al., “Modeling human adaptive immune responses with tonsil organoids”, Nature Medicine, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 125-135, 2021.
Most Cited Publications
- Wagar LE, DiFazio RM, Davis MM, “Advanced model systems and tools for basic and translational human immunology”, Genome Medicine, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 73, 2018.
- Zhou AC, Wagar LE, Wortzman ME, Watts TH, “Intrinsic 4-1BB signals are indispensable for the establishment of an influenza-specific tissue-resident memory CD8 T-cell population in the lung”, Mucosal Immunology, vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 1294-1309, 2017.
- Wagar LE, Rosella L, Crowcroft N, Lowcock B, Drohomyrecky PC, Foisy J, Gubbay J, Rebbapragada A, Winter AL, Achonu C, Ward BJ, Watts TH, “Humoral and cell-mediated immunity to pandemic H1N1 influenza in a Canadian cohort one year post-pandemic: implications for vaccination”, PLoS One, vol. 6, no. 11, pp. e28063, 2011.
- Wagar LE, Gentleman B, Pircher H, McElhaney JE, Watts TH, “Influenza-specific T cells from older people are enriched in the late effector subset and their presence inversely correlates with vaccine response”, PLoS One, vol. 6, no. 8, pp. e23698, 2011.
- Wagar LE, Bolen CR, Sigal N, Lopez Angel CJ, Guan L, Kirkpatrick BD, Haque R, Tibshirani RJ, Parsonnet J, Petri WA Jr, Davis MM, “Increased T Cell Differentiation and Cytolytic Function in Bangladeshi Compared to American Children”, Frontiers in Immunology, vol. 10, pp. 2239, 2019.
- Wagar LE, “Human immune organoids: a tool to study vaccine responses”, Nature Reviews Immunology, vol. 23, no. 11, pp. 699, 2023.
- Kastenschmidt JM, Sureshchandra S, Wagar LE, “Leveraging human immune organoids for rational vaccine design”, Trends in Immunology, vol. 44, pp. 938-944, 2023.
Contact Information
Email: lwagar@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 414-9132
Address: 847 Health Sciences Quad, Room 2533, Irvine, CA 92697-4560
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Last updated on 3/25/2026.