Our laboratory project is focusing on cancer immunotherapy, novel vaccine development and relative mechanism studies.

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• One project is focusing on establishing immunological database for oncology patients undergoing immunotherapy and Biomarker development. Our research interest is development of novel immunotherapy like neoantigen-based cancer vaccines by using specific T cell epitopes. Our cancer vaccine targeting neoantigens can stimulate one's own immune system to effectively remove cancer cells. In the neoantigen model, we are also interested in the study of tumour microenvironment and the heterogeneity of intertumoral mutation and immune cells, and improvement of neoantigen vaccine efficacy by optimising the neoantigen selection criteria and tumour microenvironment regulation.

 

• Another project is focusing on B cell epitopes of SARS-CoV-2. We identified immunodominant B cell epitopes from patients’ sera. Using these epitopes, we developed SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and tested it in animal models.

 

• We also focus on epitope prediction or thereof application. By analysing the amino acid sequence, we can distinguish immunogenic peptides from non-immunogenic peptides to predict B cell and T cell epitope. We also established a computational model to predict the antigenicity of SARS-CoV-2 variants by sequence alone and in real time.

 

We collaborate with basic scientists from Department of Pathology, Department of Medicine, School of Biomedical Science, Department of Surgery and Department of Microbiology in The University of Hong Kong  for all the ongoing translational and basic research in cancer biology, cancer biomarkers, cancer pathways and mechanisms and novel therapeutic targets.  Our laboratory also collaborate closely with State Key laboratory for Liver Research for all the basic and translational research in liver and bile duct cancer.

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Internationally, we are collaborating with Steele Laboratories, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University in discovering few promising genomic markers for immunotherapy response in liver cancer patients and we hope the results from these experiments can help us to understanding the complex immune environment in liver cancer patients and also the potential markers for response in liver cancer patients treated with immunotherapy based combinations.