Tao Dong

Supernumerary Fellow in Medicine; Professor of Immunology

Teaching

I supervise DPhil, MSc and FHS undergraduate students.

Research

The main objective of my group’s research is to focus on the functional aspects of the antigen specific T cells and studying the factors affecting T cells in controlling virus infection and cancer development.
For important human infections, cancer development and the course of disease is influenced mainly by the T cell response – while a robust and appropriate T cell response is beneficial to the host, a weak or inappropriate response can be ineffective or even have a detrimental effect. Numerous factors influence the quality of the T cell response to viral infections, predominant among them being the microenvironment of the infection site, the type of cells infected and the variability of the virus. By understanding the key factors required for efficient viral control by the T cell response in a number of different viral infections and viral associated cancer, we aim to augment and control the immune response to as a way of improving the outcome of in several important human diseases. The current research programme aims:

• To characterise human tumor specific cytotoxic T cell responses beyond T cell receptor
• To identify the factors determining functional avidity and cancer efficacy of tumour specific cytotoxic T cells in cancer micro-environment
• To study the factors affecting the antigen processing and presentation in cancer cells
• To define the impact of IFTIM3 genetic variation on Influenza, and other virus infection, immune responses and disease outcome

Selected Publications

1. Peng Y. et al, (2020), Broad and strong memory CD4+ and CD8+ T cells induced by SARS-CoV-2 in UK convalescent individuals following COVID-19. Nat Immunol
2. Abd Hamid M. et al, (2020), Self-Maintaining CD103+ Cancer-Specific T Cells Are Highly Energetic with Rapid Cytotoxic and Effector Responses. Cancer Immunol Res, 8, 203 – 216.
3. Abd Hamid M. et al, Enriched HLA-E and CD94/NKG2A Interaction Limits Antitumor CD8+ Tumor-Infiltrating T Lymphocyte Responses. (2019), Cancer Immunol Res, 7, 1293 – 1306.
4. Abd Hamid M. et al, (2020), Human cancer germline antigen-specific cytotoxic T cell-what can we learn from patient. Cell Mol Immunol, 17, 684 – 692
5. Zhang Y-H. et al, (2013), Interferon-induced transmembrane protein-3 genetic variant rs12252-C is associated with severe influenza in Chinese individuals. Nat Commun, 4
6. Lee LY-H. et al, (2008), Memory T cells established by seasonal human influenza A infection cross-react with avian influenza A (H5N1) in healthy individuals. J Clin Invest, 118, 3478 – 3490.