Our immune system is constantly defending us from many diseases through profound interactions with invaders or diseased cells. Such interactions are multi-dimensional involving substantial biological, chemical, and physical exchanges. The overarching goal of Tang laboratory is to develop novel strategies to engineer such multi-dimensional immunity-disease interactions, an emerging field called ‘immunoengineering’, to create safe and effective therapies against cancer. We leverage the power of metabolic and cellular bioengineering, synthetic chemistry and material engineering, and mechanical engineering to achieve controllable modulation of immune responses. There are three interconnected themes in our research program:

1) Metabolic immunoengineering: to reprogram immune cell metabolism with engineered proteins, cells, and molecules for enhanced proliferation, function, and longevity
Nat. Immunol. 2021, 22, 746–756. (cover story)
Nat. Immunol. 2020, 21, 1540–1551.
Biomater. Sci. 2019, 7, 1345–1357.
Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 2021, 62, 43–52.
Front. Immunol. 2018, 9, 1499.

2) Chemical immunoengineering: to achieve tissue-/cell-specific immune modulation using responsive chemistry and smart biomaterials
Sci. Adv. 2021, 7, eabg7291.
Adv. Ther. 2021, 4: 2100065.
ACS Cent. Sci. 2020, 6, 404–412.
Nat. Biotech. 2018, 36, 707–716. (cover story)

3) Mechanical immunoengineering: to manipulate the mechanical properties and interactions at cellular and tissue levels for enhanced immunotherapy
Nat. Biomed. Eng. 2021, in press.
Mater. Hori. 2020, 7, 3196-3200. (cover story)
Acc. Chem. Res. 2020, 53, 2777–2790.