Dr. Zhang [Timmerman Traverse Fellow] aims to engineer T cells with synthetic cell adhesion molecules (synCAMs) to augment current approaches for immunotherapy. This project represents a fundamentally new strategy for CAR T cell engineering that could overcome tumor escape from immunotherapy across multiple forms of cancer. Understanding how synCAMs contribute to CAR T cell efficacy will provide insights beyond cytotoxic CAR T cell therapy; this work could lead to the application of synCAMs in other engineered immune cell therapies under investigation, such as CAR macrophages, CAR natural killer cells, and CAR T regulatory cells. Overall, this approach could lead to CAR T cells that are much more robust to tumor evasion and target antigen expression, and thus much more effective therapeutically. Dr. Zhang received his PhD from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai and his BS from Wuhan University, Wuhan.
Damon Runyon Researchers
Meet Our ScientistsShaohua Zhang, PhD
Project title: "Preventing tumor evasion of CAR T killing: engineering adhesion molecules to enhance cell immunotherapy"
Institution: University of California San Francisco
Named Award: Timmerman Traverse Fellow
Award Program: Fellow
Sponsor(s) / Mentor(s): Wendell A. Lim, PhD
Cancer Type: Other Cancer, Skin
Research Area: Immunotherapy