Huang lab studies the development and functions of regulatory immunity and immune memory, during vaccination, infections and cancers.
Targeted immunotherapy, chimeric antigen receptor(CAR)-T cell therapy, has shown the promise to treat cancer and autoimmunity. However, the cytotoxic and short-lived nature of CAR-T cells results in severe side effects of immunopathology and reduced the therapeutic values of this costly therapy. There is an urgent need of novel strategies for targeted immune modulation to elicit potent and persistent tumor-specific effector and memory Tcell responses and minimize off-target toxicity. T cell development, function and homeostasis are regulated by T cell receptor (TCR) signals and cytokines and suggested to be proportional to TCR signal strength. However, very strong TCR activation and cytokine stimulation could lead to excessive cytotoxic Tcell activation that can cause immunopathology while the anti-tumor immunity quickly exhausts. Research in Huang lab proposes to tune TCR downstream signaling in human CAR-T cells and to use pre-clinical mouse models to further develop strategies that can enable a more sustainable and less toxic Tcell-based targeted immunotherapy.
Education:
2014, PhD, Cornell University
ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1330-1131
MyNCBI Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/weishan.huang.1/bibliography/public/
Selected Publications:
1. Zhang R†,Clark SD, Guo B, Zhang T, Jeansonne D, Jeyaseelan SJ, Francis J, Huang W†.Challenges in the combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy for breast cancer. Expert Rev AnticancerTher.(2023) 23(4):375-383.
2. McGee MC, Zhang T, Magazine N, Islam R, Carossino M and Huang W†. PD-1 and ICOS counter regulate tissue resident regulatory T cell development and IL-10 production during flu. Front Immunol. (2022)13:984476.
3. McGee MC and Huang W†.Evolutionary conservation and positive selection of Influenza A NucleoproteinCTL epitopes for universal vaccination. J Med Virol. (2022), 94(6):2578-2587. Editor’s Choice
4. Huang L, Ye K, Nidetz NF, Elmore JP, Limper CB, McGee MC, Southard TL, Russell DG, August A†, and Huang W†.Interleukin-2-inducible T-cell kinase deficiency impairs early pulmonary protection against Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. Front Immunol. (2020) 10:3103.
5. Nidetz NF, McGee MC, Tse LV, Li C, Cong L, Li, Y,and Huang W†. Adeno-associated viral vector-mediated immune responses: Understanding barriers to gene delivery. Pharmacol Ther. (2020) 207: 107453.
6. Solouki S, August A†, and Huang W†.Non-receptor tyrosine kinase signaling in autoimmunity and therapeutic implications. Pharmacol Ther. (2019) 201:39-50.
7. Huang W†, SoloukiS, Carter C, Zheng SG, and August A†. Beyond type 1 regulatory Tcells: co-expression of LAG3 and CD49b in IL-10-producing T cell lineages. Front Immunol. (2018) 9:2625.
8. Huang W†,Solouki S, Koylass N, Zheng SG, and August A†. ITK signalling viathe Ras/IRF4 pathway regulates the development and function of Tr1 cells. Nat Commun. (2017) 8, 15871.
Keywords/Tags: Cancer immunology, T cells, CAR-T, Immunotherapy, Signaling transduction, Immune epitopes
Link to lab website if they have one: https://www.lsu.edu/vetmed/faculty/huang.php
