Institute for Human Immunology and Protein Therapeutics

The Institute Joins Universal Influenza Vaccine Consortium

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The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has initiated the Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) program, a new network of research centers that will work together in a coordinated, multidisciplinary effort to develop more durable, broadly protective and longer-lasting influenza vaccines. NIAID will provide up to approximately $51 million in total first-year funding for the program, which is designed to support the CIVICs program centers over seven years.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-forms-new-collaborative-influenza-vaccine-research-network

Dr. Everett Stone Competes on Forged in Fire on the History Channel

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Our very own Dr. Everett Stone recently competed on the TV show Forged in Fire on the History Channel. Congratulations Dr. Stone!

The full episode can be viewed here:

https://www.history.com/shows/forged-in-fire/season-6/episode-30

photo credit: Marsha Miller

Dr. Stone was recently featured in the Texas Scientist Magazine. https://cns.utexas.edu/news/the-tool-maker-the-double-life-of-everett-stone

New cancer treatment uses enzymes to boost immune system and fight back

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In our most recent paper, we show that administration of a pharmacologically optimized enzyme (PEGylated kynureninase; hereafter referred to as PEG-KYNase) that degrades Kyn into immunologically inert, nontoxic and readily cleared metabolites inhibits tumor growth. Enzyme treatment was associated with a marked increase in the tumor infiltration and proliferation of polyfunctional CD8+ lymphocytes. We show that PEG-KYNase administration had substantial therapeutic effects when combined with approved checkpoint inhibitors or with a cancer vaccine for the treatment of large B16-F10 melanoma, 4T1 breast carcinoma or CT26 colon carcinoma tumors. PEG-KYNase mediated prolonged depletion of Kyn in the TME and reversed the modulatory effects of IDO1/TDO upregulation in the TME.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4180

http://www.worldpharmanews.com/research/4522-new-cancer-treatment-uses-enzymes-to-boost-immune-system-and-fight-back

GRA George Delidakis wins Poster Prize at EMBO Antibodies Conference

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GRA George Delidakis recently attended the EMBO Antibody and Complement: Effector functions, Therapies and Technologies Conference in Girona, Spain and was awarded one of two Poster Awards.

The Conference was attended by an international group of faculty, students, and scientists from the biotech industry who work on understanding the diverse and complex roles of antibodies in the context of the broader immune system. In his poster, he presented our lab’s work on generating a panel of engineered antibodies which -unlike wildtype antibody- display unique specificity to each member of the Fc gamma receptor family, a family of receptors that are critical in linking the innate and adaptive branches of immunity. For his presentation, he was awarded one of the two Poster Awards, along with a cash prize.

The research was sponsored by the Clayton Foundation for Research.

Congratulations George!

Undergraduate Researcher Justin Mirazee awarded ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship and URF Fellowship

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Justin Mirazee, Undergraduate Researcher, was awarded the ThinkSwiss Research Scholarship to assist research in Dr. Sai Reddy’s lab at ETH-Zürich for Summer 2018. Justin will be learning how to use CRISPR-Cas9 to modify antibody expression in murine hybridoma cell lines and engineer other complex proteins such as chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) for immunotherapy.

In addition, Justin was awarded an Undergraduate Research Fellowship (URF) from UT Austin to support the T-cell Fc gamma receptor project with Wissam Charab.

Congratulations, Justin!