Title

Gabe A. Kwong

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Title/Position
Professor, Robert A. Milton Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering
Areas of Research

Areas of Research

Cancer Technologies , Immunoengineering , Biomaterials & Regenerative Technologies
Contact

Contact

Marcus Nanotechnology Building, Office 3132 Georgia Tech
gkwong@gatech.edu
404.385.3746
Laboratory for Synthetic Immunity
Biography

Biography

Dr. Kwong is the Robert A. Milton Endowed Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory School of Medicine. He received his B.S. in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Caltech, followed by postdoctoral training at MIT. He directs a research program at the intersection of bioengineering, immunology, and medicine. His work has earned broad recognition and notable distinctions, among them the NIH Director’s New Innovator and Pioneer Awards. He currently leads the $49.5 million Cancer and Organ Degradome Atlas (CODA) project, a multi-institutional research enterprise supported by ARPA-H to revolutionize multi-cancer detection. He has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies and holds more than 40 issued or pending patents.

Education

Education

  • Postdoctoral Fellowship, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Ph.D. Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology
  • B.S. Bioengineering, UC Berkeley
Research Interests

Research Interests

Dr. Kwong’s research program brings together synthetic immunity and medicine to develop better ways to detect and treat disease, with a particular focus on cancer. His lab engineers biosensors that reveal disease earlier and technologies to track, control, and program cell therapies. These advances aim to transform how disease is detected and treated, making powerful therapies safer, more effective, and accessible to all. 

Teaching Interests

Teaching Interests

Dr. Kwong’s teaching focuses on the fundamentals of biotransport, including momentum, heat, and mass transfer in biological systems. He also teaches immunoengineering, covering immune system principles, synthetic biology, and the engineering of cells and biomolecules for therapeutic applications. His teaching develops students' analytical skills, critical thinking, and quantitative problem-solving abilities.
Publications

Publications

Nature Cancer
Gamboa L†, Zamat AH†, Thiveaud CA, Lee HJ, Kulaksizoglu E, Zha Z, Campbell NS, Chan CS, Fábrega S, Oliver SA, Su FY, Phuengkham H, Vanover D, Peck HE, Sivakumar A, Dahotre SN, Harris AM, Santangelo PJ, and Kwong GA, “Sensitizing solid tumors to CAR-mediated cytotoxicity by lipid nanoparticle delivery of synthetic antigens” Nat. Cancer 6, 1073–1087 (2025)
Nature Nanotechnology
Sivakumar A, Phuengkham H, Rajesh H, Mac QD, Silva Trenkle AD, Rogers LC, Bawage SS, Hincapie R, Li Z, Vainikos S, Lee I, Xue M, Qiu P, Finn M.G., and Kwong GA, “AND-gated protease-activated nanosensors for programmable detection of anti-tumour immunity” Nat. Nanotechnol. 20, 441–450 (2025).
Science Advances
Su FY, Zhao QY, Dahotre SD, Gamboa L, Bawage SS, Silva Trenkle AD, Zamat A, Phuengkham H, Ahmed R, Santangelo P, and Kwong GA, “In vivo mRNA delivery to virus-specific T cells by light-induced ligand exchange of MHC class I antigen-presenting nanoparticles” Sci. Adv. 8: eabm7950 (2022).
Nature Biomedical Engineering
Mac QD†, Sivakumar A†, Phuengkham H, Xu C, Bowen JR, Su FY, Stentz SZ, Sim H, Harris AM, Li TT, Qiu P, and Kwong GA, “Urinary detection of early responses to checkpoint blockade and of resistance to it via protease-cleaved antibody-conjugated sensors” Nat. Biomed. Eng. 6, 320–324 (2022).
Molecular Systems Biology
Holt BA, Tuttle M, Xu Y, Su M, Roise JJ, Wang X, Murthy N and Kwong GA, “Dimensionless parameter predicts bacterial prodrug success” Mol. Syst. Biol. 18: e10496 (2022).
Nature Biomedical Engineering
Miller IC†, Zamat A†, Sun LK, Phuengkham H, Harris AM, Gamboa L, Yang J, Murad JP, Priceman SJ and Kwong GA, “Enhanced intratumoural activity of CAR T cells engineered to produce immunomodulators under photothermal control” Nat. Biomed. Eng. 5, 1348–1359 (2021).
Nature Reviews Cancer
Kwong GA‡, Ghosh S, Gamboa L, Patriotis C, Srivastava S‡, and Bhatia SN‡, “Synthetic Biomarkers: A 21st century path to early cancer detection” Nat. Rev. Cancer 21, 655–668 (2021).
Nature Communications
Holt BA and Kwong GA, “Protease circuits for processing biological information” Nat. Commun. 11, 5021 (2020).
Media

Media

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