研究員 / 本院生醫所

EDUCATION AND POSITIONS HELD:

• Ph.D., Microbiology and Immunology, Columbia University (1990)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Oncology, Stanford University (1990-1993)
• Assistant Research Fellow, Academia Sinica (1993-1998)
• Associate Research Fellow, Academia Sinica (1998-2004)
• Research Fellow, Academia Sinica (2004-present)

HONORS:

• Young Investigator Research Award, Academia Sinica, 1999
• Outstanding Research Award, National Science Council, 2000, 2003

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Gene Therapy and Immunotherapy for Cancer and Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

The major interest of our laboratory is to develop novel gene therapy and immunotherapeutic methods to treat cancers and chronic hepatitis B virus infection. We focus on applying cytokines and immune costimulatory molecules to break T cell tolerance commonly found in cancer and chronic hepatitis patients. The state of the art technologies, such as DNA vaccines, dendritic cell vaccines, in vivo electroporation, RNA interference and engineered antibodies are used in these studies. Immunocytokines that can target cytokines to the tumor site have been applied to treat murine and human cancers. Our study shows that intratumoral electroporation of interleukin 12 genes suppressed tumor growth in mice and canine models, and a phase I clinical trial is designed to treat cancer patients. The antitumor and antiviral activities of the two recently discovered interleukin 12 family cytokines, interleukin 23 and interleukin 27, and their effector mechanisms are under investigation. A number of transgenic mouse strains that can produce hepatitis B virus or induce spontaneous hepatocellular carcinoma are generated as animal models to explore novel therapeutic methods, including RNA interference, adoptive T cell transfer-based therapy, and therapeutic vaccines. Details of our current research projects can be found at the web site http://www.ibms.sinica.edu.tw/%7Ebmtao/.

本實驗室研究課題主要在發展新穎的基因治療和免疫治療方法，目標是針對癌症和B 型肝炎病毒慢性感染。我們應用細胞激素和其他免疫輔助分子，克服在癌症和B 型肝炎病人上常見的T細胞耐受性問題，同時也應用一些最近開發的技術，例如基因疫苗、樹突細胞疫苗，體內基因電擊法、干擾RNA和抗體遺傳工程等來執行這些研究計劃。我們製造的免疫細胞激素，是包含細胞激素和單株抗體的融合蛋白，已經被應用在治療老鼠和人類的腫瘤。我們的研究也證明經由肌肉電擊傳送介白素 -12，能有效抑制小鼠和狗的腫瘤生長，即將對癌症病人進行第一期的臨床試驗。同屬介白素-12家族的介白素-23和介白素-27，其抗癌和抗病毒感染的活性也正在實驗室探討中。我們也製造能在小鼠肝臟產生B 型肝炎病毒和會自發性產生肝癌腫瘤的基因轉殖鼠，測試各種基因治療和免疫治療的治療效果，包含干擾RNA、T細胞治療法和治療性疫苗等。