Jin Xie
University of Georgia, GA·Biomedical Engineering
Checkpoint inhibitors release the immune system's brakes so that T cells, the body's killer immune cells, can attack a tumor, but most patients never respond. In head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), the sixth most common cancer worldwide, only about 15 to 20 percent of patients benefit, and pairing these drugs with radiation or chemotherapy has repeatedly disappointed in trials.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Microbiology & Immunology
Pharmacology
- Topics
cancer immunotherapy
nanoparticles
nanomedicine
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Feb 2031
What they work on
- Test whether anti-CD205 antibody-conjugated calcium nanoparticles (αCaNPs) selectively raise cytosolic calcium in circulating cDC1 dendritic cells and increase their infiltration into tumors in murine head and neck cancer models.
- Determine whether αCaNPs drive cDC1 maturation inside tumors and migration to tumor-draining lymph nodes, where they prime T cells under PD-L1 antibody blockade during radio-immunotherapy.
- Measure the pharmacokinetics and biodistribution of 7-dehydrocholesterol-loaded synthetic LDL nanoparticles (7DHC-LDLs) in orthotopic HNSCC models, testing LDL-receptor-mediated tumor accumulation.
- Evaluate whether ferroptotic cancer cell death triggered by 7DHC-LDLs enhances anti-PD-L1 checkpoint blockade, and profile the resulting tumor microenvironment including dendritic cell and T cell responses.
More about the research
A recurring explanation is that tumors lack activated dendritic cells, the immune cells that collect tumor fragments and show them to T cells. Both projects in this lab engineer nanoparticles to fix that shortage, and both test them alongside antibodies blocking PD-L1, a brake molecule on tumor and immune cells, in mouse models of HNSCC.
Why it matters
Five-year survival in advanced head and neck cancer has not improved in three decades, and most patients gain nothing from existing checkpoint inhibitors. By supplying tumors with activated dendritic cells, either through calcium delivery or through a lipid that forces an immune-stimulating form of cancer cell death, these nanoparticle strategies could widen the fraction of patients who respond to immunotherapy and radio-immunotherapy, and may transfer to other solid tumors.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Sana D Karam
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how immune checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-L1 drugs act on PD-1-expressing regulatory T cells and their STAT3 signaling during radiation therapy, using genetically engineered mice and samples from HNSCC clinical trials.
Xiao-Jing Wang
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether blocking TGFβ and PD-L1 together strengthens the radiation-triggered "in situ vaccine" effect and immune activation across the body, using mouse oral cancer cells transplanted into the mouth of immune-competent mice.
Nu Zhang
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX·Microbiology & Immunology
Determine how TRM-stem cells, Tcf-1+ stem-like CD8+ T cells that become resident in tumor-draining lymph nodes, are related to other T cell subsets there, by tracking tumor-specific T cells in mouse tumor models.
The school
University of Georgia: 27 labs on PI Pages, $628M a year on research, 598 research doctorates a year.
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