Sarah Crome

Associate Professor (Partner) – Pending

Sarah Crome, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Medical Genetics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia
Senior Scientist, Terry Fox Laboratory, Basic and Translational Research Program, BC Cancer Research Institute

Email: scrome@bccrc.ca
Website: https://www.bccrc.ca/dept/tfl/labs/crome-lab and https://www.cromelab.com/

Dr. Sarah Crome’s research spans human immunology, immune tolerance, and translational immunotherapy. Her laboratory applies high-dimensional single-cell and spatial profiling, functional immune studies and human disease models to define how innate lymphoid cell (ILC) and Natural Killer (NK) populations shape immunity in health and disease. This work aims to uncover the cellular and molecular programs that govern immune regulation and translate those insights into novel therapeutic strategies for autoimmune disease, cancer, and transplantation. 

Research Interests

  • Tissue-resident innate lymphocyte biology: Mapping the phenotypic diversity and functional states of human ILCs and NK cells, as well as other tissue-resident immune populations, across health and disease using single-cell and spatial omics.
  • Immune regulation and tolerance: Elucidating mechanisms by which lymphocytes, in particular ILCs, influence adaptive immunity and maintain immune homeostasis.
  • Translational immunotherapy: Developing cell engineering strategies to harness innate lymphocyte functions, including regulatory ILC-based therapies to prevent aberrant immune responses and NK cell-based therapies for cancer

Dr. Crome completed her doctoral training at the University of British Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Megan Levings, where she investigated molecular mechanisms controlling human CD4+ T helper subsets. Her postdoctoral work with Dr. Pamela Ohashi at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre identified a an immunosuppressive NK cell-like ILC population in ovarian cancer that regulates tumour-associate T cells, published in Nature Medicine. Prior to joining UBC’s Department of Medical Genetics, she served as Senior Scientist and Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and held a Canada Research Chair in Tissue-Specific Immune Tolerance. 

Select Publications (full publication list available at [PubMed]

  • Colpitts SJ, Jegatheeswaran S, Oakie A, Mashhouri S, Sachewsky N, Murshed H, Mathews JA, Reid KT, Misra PS, Fung VCW, Reichman T, Nostro MC, Verchere CB, Levings MK, Crome SQ. Cell therapy with human interleukin-10-producing ILC2s enhances islet function and inhibits allograft rejection. American Journal of Transplantation. 2025;25(9):1858-1869.
  • Thayaparan D, Emoto T, Khan AB, Besla R, Hamidzada H, El-Maklizi M, Sivasubramaniyam T, Vohra S, Hagerman A, Nejat S, Needham-Robbins CE, Wang T, Lindquist M, Botts SR, Schroer SA, Taniguchi M, Inoue T, Yamanaka K, Cui H, Al-Chami E, Zhang H, Althagafi MG, Michalski A, McGrath JJC, Cass SP, Luong D, Suzuki Y, Li A, Abow A, Heo R, Pacheco S, Chen E, Chiu F, Byrne J, Furuyashiki T, Husain M, Libby P, Okada K, Howe KL, Heximer SP, Yamashita T, Wang B, Rubin BB, Cybulsky MI, Roy J, Williams JW, Crome SQ, Epelman S, Hirata K, Stampfli MR, Robbins CS. Endothelial dysfunction drives atherosclerotic plaque macrophage-dependent abdominal aortic aneurysm formation. Nature Immunology. 2025;26:706–721.
  • Crome SQ, Tsai S. The art of war: burning stores to fuel anti-viral immunity. Nature Metabolism. 2025;7:862–863. (News & Views)
  • Reid KT, Colpitts SJ, Mathews JA, Santos Carreira A, Murphy JM, Borovsky DT, Jegatheeswaran S, Cui W, Alfaro Moya T, Sachewsky N, An J, Xia Y, Mortha A, Lee JB, Zhang L, Novitzky-Basso I, Mattsson J, Crome SQ. Cell therapy with human IL-10-producing ILC2s limits xenogeneic graft-versus-host disease by inhibiting pathogenic T cell responses. Cell Reports. 2025 Dec 24;44(1):115102. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.115102. 
  • Mathews JA, Borovsky DT, Reid KT, Murphy JM, Colpitts SJ, Carreira AS, Moya TA, Chung DC, Novitzky-Basso I, Mattsson J, Ohashi PS, Crome SQ. Single cell profiling of hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients reveals TGF-β1 and IL-2 confer immunoregulatory functions to NK cells. iScience. 2024 Nov 18;27(12):111416. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.111416. 
  • Chung DC, Garcia-Batres CR, Millar DG, Wong SWY, Elford AR, Mathews JA, Wang BX, Nguyen LT, Shaw PA, Clarke BA, Bernardini MQ, Sacher AG, Crome SQ, Ohashi PS. Generation of an Inhibitory NK Cell Subset by TGF-β1/IL-15 Polarization. J Immunol. 2024 Jun 15;212(12):1904-1912. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2300834.
  • Mak ML, Reid KT, Crome SQ. Protective and pathogenic functions of innate lymphoid cells in transplantation. Clin Exp Immunol. 2023 Jul 5;213(1):23-39. doi: 10.1093/cei/uxad050. 
  • McEvoy,CM, Murphy JM, Zhang, L, Mathews JA, Clotet-Freixas S, An J, Karimzadeh M, Pouyabahar D, Su S, Liu LY, Wang Bo, MacParland SA, Bader GD, Konvalinka A‡, Crome SQ et al. Single-cell profiling of healthy human kidney reveals features of sex-based transcriptional programs and tissue-specific immunity. Nature Communications 2022.  13, 7634 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35297-z
  • Currie E, Coburn B, Porfilio E, Lam P, Rojas O, Novak J, Yang S, Chowdhury R, Ward L, Wang P, Khaleghi K, An J, Crome SQ, Hladunewich M, Barbour S, Cattran D, Parekh R, Licht C, John R, Kaul JR, Croitoru K, Gray-Owen S, Guttman D, Gommerman J, Reich H. Immunoglobulin A neuropathy is characterized by anti-commensal humoral immune responses. Journal of Clinical Ivestigation Insight. 2022 Mar 8;7(5):e141289. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.141289.
  • Murphy JM, Ngai L, Mortha A, Crome SQ. Tissue adaptations and functions of human innate lymphoid cells. Frontiers in Immunology 2022. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.836999
  • Jegatheeswaran S, Mathews JA, Crome SQ. Searching for the Elusive Regulatory Innate Lymphoid Cell. Journal of Immunology, 2021, 207(8), 1949-1957.
  • Nakamura A, Zeng F, Nakamura S, Reid KT, Gracey E, Lim M, Leng L, Jo S, Park Y, Kusuda M, Machhar R, Boroojeni SF, Wu B, Rossomacha E, Kim T, Ciccia F, Rockel JS, Kapoor M, Inman RD, Jurisica I, Crome SQ, Bucala R, Haroon N. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor drives pathology in a mouse model of spondyloarthritis and is associated with human disease. Science Translational Medicine 2021, 13(616). 
  • Budd MA, Monajemi M, Colpitts SJ, Crome SQ, Verchere CB, Levings MK. Interactions between islets and regulatory immune cells in health and type 1 diabetes. Diabetologia 2021, 64, 2378-2388.
  • Crome SQ, Ohashi PS. Immunoregulatory Functions of Innate Lymphoid Cells. Journal of Immunotherapy of Cancer 2018, 6:121
  • Crome SQ, Nguyen LT, Lopez-Verges S, Yang SYC, Martin B, Yam JY, Johnson DJ*, Nie J, Pniak M, Yen PH, Milea A, Sowamber R, Katz SR, Bernardini MQ, Clarke BA, Shaw PA, Lang PA­­, Berman HK, Pugh TJ, Lanier LL, Ohashi PS. A distinct innate lymphoid cell population regulates tumor-associated T cells. Nature Medicine. 2017, 23:368–375.     
  • Grusdat M, McIlwain DR, Xu HC, Pozdeev VI, Knievel J, Crome SQ, Robert-Tissot C, Dress RJ, Pandyra AA, Speiser DE, Lang E, Maney SK, Elford AR, Hamilton SR, Scheu S, Pfeffer K, Bode J, Mittrucker HW, Lohoff M, Huber M, Häussinger D, Ohashi PS, Mak TW, Lang KS, Lang PA. IRF4 and BATF are critical for CD8+ T cell function following infection with LCMV. Cell Death and Differentiation. 2014, 21(7):1050-1060.     
  • Crome SQ, Lang PA, Lang KS, Ohashi PS. Natural Killer cells regulate diverse T cell responses. Trends in Immunology. 2013, 34(7):342-349.     

Lab Website: https://www.bccrc.ca/dept/tfl/labs/crome-lab and https://www.cromelab.com/

BC Cancer Profile: https://www.bccrc.ca/dept/tfl/people/sarah-crome