ECResearch

My research is driven by a fundamental premise:

 

disease is not sustained by abnormal cells alone, but by pathological cellular ecosystems that actively establish and maintain their own environment.

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Tumours, chronic inflammation and fibrosis can become self-reinforcing systems. Pathological cells reshape their surroundings through inflammatory signals, metabolic changes, extracellular factors and tissue remodelling, creating environments that suppress effective immunity and prevent recovery. I aim to break these pathological circuits by engineering immune cells that can identify the cellular drivers of disease, eliminate them, and actively reshape the tissue environment that remains.

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From immune regulation to immune reconstruction

My research over the past decade has focused on understanding how immune-cell function is controlled across multiple biological scales — from T-cell receptor signalling[Nat. Comm.] and membrane organisation to lipid metabolism[Nat. Immunol.], intracellular trafficking, extracellular particles[Nat. Methods] and the tissue microenvironment[Nat. Metab.].

This work has revealed how disease-associated environments can fundamentally alter immune-cell behaviour. I have shown how tumour-derived lipids can disrupt T-cell receptor organisation and impair anti-tumour immunity, investigated how immune cells adapt metabolically to hostile environments[JCI], defined mechanisms controlling inflammatory receptor trafficking, and discovered distinct T-cell-derived extracellular particles with cytotoxic[PNAS], immunoregulatory and tissue-reparative functions.

These discoveries have progressively shifted my research from understanding how immune cells respond to disease towards engineering what immune cells can do within disease.

This culminated in the development of CyTrex[Biorxiv], a patented CD8⁺ regulatory T-cell platform that combines functions traditionally separated in cell therapy: cytotoxicity, immune regulation and tissue repair.

CyTrex established a principle that now underpins my broader research vision:

Immune cells can be engineered not simply as weapons against disease, but as multifunctional long-lived biological agents capable of removing pathology and rebuilding tissue function.

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Beyond conventional CAR-T

I aim to extend CAR-T from target-cell elimination to tissue reconstruction: engineering immune cells to identify and eliminate the pathological cells that sustain disease, while simultaneously resetting the microenvironment, resolving inflammation and promoting tissue repair.

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By integrating immune engineering, immunometabolism, pathological tissue biology and regenerative immunology, my vision is to create multifunctional living medicines that can:

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ELIMINATE → RESET → REPAIR

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Engineering the immune system not simply to fight disease, but to reconstruct the biological environment required for health.