Research
Overarching Goal
Our immune system is constantly defending us from many diseases through profound interactions with invaders or diseased cells. Such interactions are multi-dimensional, meaning that extensive biological, chemical, and physical exchanges are involved. With that in mind, the team of Tang Laboratory is developing novel strategies to engineer such multi-dimensional immunity-disease interactions from various aspects, an emerging field called ‘immunoengineering’, in order to create safe and effective therapies against cancer and infectious diseases.
Specifically, we leverage the power of metabolic and cellular bioengineering, synthetic chemistry and material engineering, and mechanical engineering to achieve controllable modulation of immune responses against diseases. There are three interconnected themes in our research program:
1) to reprogram immune cell metabolism with engineered proteins, cells, and molecules for enhanced proliferation, function, and longevity (Metabolic immunoengineering). See our recent publications:
- Nature 2024, 634, 712-720.
- Nature 2024, 634, 702-711.
- Nat. Biotech. 2024, 42, 1693-1704.
- Nat. Immunol. 2021, 22, 746–756.
2) to achieve tissue-/cell-specific immune modulation using responsive chemistry and smart biomaterials (Chemical immunoengineering). See our recent publications:
3) to investigate and manipulate the mechanical properties and interactions at molecular, cellular and tissue levels for enhanced immunotherapy (Mechanical immunoengineering). See our recent publications:
Funding
We are highly grateful for the generous funding support.
