By DoM Communications | Date published: October 1, 2026

Wenqing Zhou Awarded Child Health Research Award from Charles H. Hood Foundation 

Wenqing Zhou, PhD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Innate Immunity, was awarded the September 2026 Child Health Research Award from the Charles H. Hood Foundation. Dr. Zhou and her colleagues propose to study how the immune system learns to recognize helpful gut microbes during the early stages of life. Although scientists understand how the immune system detects harmful pathogens and triggers inflammation to fight infection, much less is known about how the immune system senses beneficial microbes and promotes tolerance, especially in infants and young children, when these lifelong relationships are first established. 

With this grant, Dr. Zhou and her team will work to identify the key immune sensors that detect harmless gut microbes, understand how these sensors promote tolerance during early life, and determine how their failure contributes to the start and worsening of intestinal inflammation.