The Institute for Human Immunology and Proteomics

Focused on the discovery and development of protein therapeutics and on the analysis of adaptive immune responses since 2009.

Current Projects include:

  1. The discovery, early development and preclinical validation of protein therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, inborn errors of metabolism disorders and other diseases. Our lab has invented and played a key role in the early development of one FDA approved therapeutic protein and four proteins that are currently in clinical trials.
  2. Molecular level understanding of human antibody immunity. We have developed technologies for determining the identity (sequence), relative abundance and function of the ensemble of circulating antibodies that are elicited as a result of infection, vaccination or in disease states such as cancer and autoimmunity. The application of these technologies is providing important insights that inform vaccine design and aid in the discovery of very potent human therapeutic antibodies.
  3. Engineering of the Fc domain of therapeutic antibodies to develop, “second generation” improved therapeutics and to expand our understanding of how antibodies interact with other components of the immune system to help eradicate disease-causing cells.

Earlier work by the Georgiou lab focused on redox homeostasis and protein biogenesis in bacteria and on the development of platform technologies for protein expression and engineering. These studies led to a number of mechanistic advances that are being used commercially for therapeutic protein manufacturing and protein engineering.

Dr. Georgiou is the co-inventor of 58 issued and 79 pending US patents. Notably, 84 out of 137 patents comprising 23 distinct technology suites have been licensed or optioned to 27 biotech companies.