Lydia Lynch

Lydia Lynch is an immunologist who studies the effects of obesity and diet on immune cell functions and cancer. She is a professor in the department of Molecular biology at Princeton University and a Member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Princeton Branch.

Biography Lydia Lynch received her B.Sc. degree in Cell Biology and Genetics from University College Dublin, Ireland. She went on to earn her PhD in Immunology in 2008 from the same university after working in the lab of Cliona O’Farrelly in St. Vincent’s University Hospital.

She worked with Donal O’Shea at St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin for her post-doctoral studies and helped establish the Immunology and Obesity Lab, with the goal of coordinating international, collaborative, translational research in obesity and its complications.

In 2022, Lynch was the recipient of the John R. Kettman Award for Excellence in Cytokine and Interferon Research, which was given by the International Cytokine and Interferon Society, saying "Lynch’s research has the potential to provide insight into the impact of obesity and diet on cancer immunotherapy, as well as the mechanisms underlying the increased risk of immune-related disorders associated with obesity."

Recent Research

Lynch's research has continued to examine how fat metabolism affects the immune system. A 2024 paper in Nature showed that a specific type of immune cell found in fat tissue, called a γδ T cell, follows a daily biological rhythm, and that this rhythm is needed for normal fat production and metabolism in the body. A 2025 paper in Science Immunology found that immune cells called natural killer cells, which normally help destroy cancer cells, are disabled by fats present in fluid that accumulates in the abdomen of patients with ovarian cancer, and identified a protein called SCARB1 as responsible for this effect and as a possible treatment target. Also in 2025, a Nature Metabolism paper showed that in obese mice, the type of fat consumed in the diet, rather than the amount, determines how well the immune system can fight tumours, with diets based on animal fats impairing the function of immune cells in the tumour.

Selected publications Lynch, Lydia, Donal O'Shea, Desmond C. Winter, Justin Geoghegan, Derek G. Doherty, and Cliona O'Farrelly. "Invariant NKT cells and CD1d+ cells amass in human omentum and are depleted in patients with cancer and obesity." European journal of immunology 39, no. 7 (2009): 1893-1901. Lynch, Lydia, Xavier Michelet, Sai Zhang, Patrick J. Brennan, Ashley Moseman, Chantel Lester, Gurdyal Besra et al. "Regulatory i NKT cells lack expression of the transcription factor PLZF and control the homeostasis of Treg cells and macrophages in adipose tissue." Nature immunology 16, no. 1 (2015): 85-95. Lynch, Lydia, Andrew E. Hogan, Danielle Duquette, Chantel Lester, Alexander Banks, Katherine LeClair, David E. Cohen et al. "iNKT cells induce FGF21 for thermogenesis and are required for maximal weight loss in GLP1 therapy." Cell metabolism 24, no. 3 (2016): 510-519.