PhD-student
PhD Kun Fan
Curriculum Vitae:
I received my master's degree in Natural Science at ShanghaiTech University. My previous research mainly focuses on the antibody screening and evaluation targeting tumor cells. After that, I worked as a research associate in a pharmaceutical company named Zailab for two years and responsible for assay development to evaluate drug candidates in vitro and supporting antibody drug screening. Then I joined Prof. Peter ten Dijke’s group in October 2023.
Research:
In tumor microenvironment, TGF-β can drive inhibition of cytotoxic T cells and convert anti-tumor M1 macrophages into tumor promoting M2 macrophages. Besides, it stimulates formation of immune suppressive myeloid suppressor and Tregs thereby mediate immune evasion. Moreover TGF-β can induce epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and active cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and stimulate angiogenesis, which contributes to rapid tumor growth and metastasis. All these evidences suggest that TGF-β is a prime target for novel anti-tumor therapies. However, TGF-β is also crucial for healthy tissue maintenance. Severe toxicities are observed when TGF-β signalling is entirely blocked by directly inhibiting ligand or receptor function. My research aims to use engineered extracellular vesicles (EVs) as delivery vesicles of TGF-β modulators to manipulate TGF-β signalling more specifically to suppress metastasis of tumor cells and enhance the cytotoxic T cells efficacy.
