Research Fellow

EDUCATION AND POSITIONS HELD:

• 2011-, Research Fellow, Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica
• 2005-2011, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica
• 2005-, Adjunct Associate Professor, Institute of Pathology, National Taiwan University
• 2005-, Adjunct Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Oral Biology, National Taiwan University
• 2001-2005, Assistant & Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Oral Biology, National Taiwan University
• 1996-2001, Assistant & Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Preventive Medicine, National Defense Medical Center
• 1993-1996, Post-doctoral fellow, Institute of Biomedical Science, Academia Sinica
• 1993, Ph.D. Institute of Pathology, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

1. Identification of cancer-specific peptides and development of ligand-targeted therapy for cancer

Cancer is one of the most common causes of death, with more than 7 million deaths each year worldwide. One major problem in the treatment of cancer is acquired drug resistance to chemotherapy. Ligand-targeted therapy makes possible tumor specificity, has limited toxicity and shows promise for the development of novel therapies for cancer. Recently, we developed methods to identify the receptors expressed specifically on cancer cells and tumor vessels using phage display. Phage display is a powerful method for the rapid identification of peptide ligands for a variety of target molecules (antibodies, enzymes, and cell-surface receptors). We successfully developed these methods to identify serotype-specific and neutralizing B-cell epitopes; specific ligands for receptors; disease-specific antigen mimics from complex serum samples of human patients; cancer cell-specific peptide ligands for the development of ligand-targeted cancer therapy and tumor homing peptide ligands for the development of anti-angiogenesis therapy. Using these technologies, several peptide ligands have been isolated that home to cancer cell and tumor-specific endothelial cell receptors. In an effort to develop ligand-targeted therapy, we used peptide-linked liposomes that carried doxorubicin to treat SCID mice bearing human cancers. The peptide-functionalised liposomes were found to have an enhanced anti-tumor effect and offer significant clinical potential in a targeted drug delivery system. We plan to identify the ligand-targeted proteins on the plasma membrane of cancer cells, to study the function and cellular signaling pathway of the target proteins and to generate therapeutic antibodies for targeted anti-cancer treatment.

2. Dengue virus research: