Gabe A. Kwong

Dr. Kwong’s research program is centered at the interface of synthetic immunity and medicine. He and his team are interested in advancing biosensors and cell therapies to address frontier challenges in medicine, particularly within oncology:

• Multi-Cancer Early Detection: Native tumor-shed biomarkers are found at such vanishingly small quantities in biofluids that they offer limited potential to set early-stage tumors apart from healthy tissue. We design and deploy bioengineered sensors inside the body to hunt for malignant cells and then use their ubiquitous dysregulation of protease activity to drive the release of a synthetic biomarker to levels that can far exceed those achievable by a native tumor biomarker, allowing earlier cancer detection.
• CAR T Cell Therapy: Engineered T cell therapies are transforming clinical care for blood cancers; however, this success has not reliably translated to solid tumors. To address this challenge, we design strategies to enhance therapeutic potency by enabling spatial and temporal control of CAR T cells for tumor-localized delivery of otherwise systemically toxic adjuvants, and by sensitizing tumors through the expression of synthetic antigens to address the scarcity of tumor-specific CAR targets.
• Drug Delivery to Antigen-Specific T Cells: Antigen (Ag)-specific T cells express T cell receptors (TCRs) that recognize peptide antigens presented by major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) molecules on the cell surface. The interaction between TCRs and pMHCs underlies the remarkable specificity of T cell recognition and their cytotoxic function. We develop pMHC technologies to identify, isolate, and modulate Ag-specific T cells for applications in infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders, and cancer immunotherapy.
• Protease Biocircuits: Recent advances in synthetic biology are driving the development of innovative platforms for treatment and detection, paving the way for practical applications in programmable medicine. Our work focuses on engineering the next generation of therapeutics built from programmable, activity-based circuits capable of autonomous therapeutic and diagnostic functions that process biological information in real time. To achieve this, we design, model, and implement biocircuits activated by biological activity, with a particular focus on proteases as a model system.