Dr. Li Tang was awarded a PDA travel grant for the Jan-June 2015 cycle.
BIO: Dr. Li Tang is currently an Irvington Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Darrell Irvine’s lab at MIT. Dr. Tang received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while working as a NIH M-CNTC Fellow in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Peking University in China in 2007. He is the recipient of CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship, Marlena Felter Bradford Research Travel Fellowship and Racheff-Intel Award.
RESEARCH OVERVIEW: Dr. Tang’s current research focuses on modulating the immune system using bioengineering tools for immunotherapy of cancer and other diseases. He developed a novel carrier-free delivery strategy for cytokines and engineered T cell surface with a cell surface reduction responsive nanogel to achieve highly efficient and specific in vivo expansion of tumor specific T cells for adoptive cell therapy for cancer. This simple yet efficient immunoengineering strategy is highly promising for clinical translation for cancer treatment.