Upcoming Seminar: Dr. Xiang Zhao
Xiang Zhao, PhD
Post-doctoral Fellow, Laboratory of Christopher Garcia
Stanford University
Xiang obtained his Ph.D. from the National University of Singapore, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Christopher Garcia’s lab at Stanford University. Xiang has done pioneering work at the interface of immunology, bioengineering, and pharmacology. His research interests are focused on mechanisms of potentiating CD8+ T cell immunity and T cell-based cancer immunotherapy by molecular evolution and protein engineering. He invented the method of T cell displayed DNA-encoded library and T cell receptor signaling-based functional selection technology to accelerate the evolution of immune molecules. Xiang is currently focused on mechanisms of potentiating the cytotoxicity of CD8+T cells in cancer by T cell receptor (TCR) engineering to develop new TCR-T cell therapy. In his independent laboratory, Xiang will investigate the consequences of potentiating the cytotoxicity of CD8+ T cells in tumor microenvironment using “catch bonding” and will study mechanism by which transcriptional networks and cytokines synergize with TCR engineering to potentiate the cytotoxicity of CD8+ T cells in cancer. His long-term goals are to understand the dynamic receptome of CD8+ T cell in tumor, expand the scope of high-throughput functional selection to other complicated receptors on CD8+ T cells, and engineer CD8+ T cells for better cytotoxicity in cancer.
Tuesday February 21, 2023
11:00am – 12:00pm
"Catch bond engineered T cell receptors for cancer immunotherapy"