Development and Characterization of Novel Antibody Platforms

My research focus is designing novel engineered antibody platforms that are multivalency-specificity and pharmacokinetically optimized. In the Cheung lab, I studied how the structural, biophysical, and functional properties of a platform’s design influenced its activities in vitro and in vivo. This knowledge led to a highly improved therapeutic index and potency in designing next-generation immunotherapeutics. On the immunotherapy side, I undertook a detailed evaluation of an extensive array of structural variants to arrive at the ideal design in targeting polyclonal T cells toward human tumors to achieve a cure. On the radioimmunotherapy side, I helped develop the self-assembly-dis-assembly system to simplify what were three steps down to a two-step pretargeted radioimmunotherapy approach, an improvement that will greatly simplify clinical translation. In collaboration with Drs. Sarah Cheal and Steven Larson of the Molecular Pharmacology Program at the Sloan Kettering Institute, we can deliver massive doses of radiation to mice bearing human tumors by using radiometals that emit β and α particles without causing toxicities.

Fellowships

Grayer Fellowship (2015-2016)