黃麗蓉副研究員

黃麗蓉 副研究員
分子與基因醫學研究所

連絡電話：886-37-206166 #35346
E-mail：lrhuang@nhri.edu.tw

 

 

 

 

學歷

Ph.D., Microbiology, National Taiwan University (2007)

M.S. Immunology, National Taiwan University (1998)

B.V.M. Veterinary Medicine, National Chung Hsing University (1996)

經歷

2021/01 – present

Associate Investigator, Institute of Molecular and Genomic Medicine, National Health Research Institutes

2017/02 – present

Adjunct Assistant professor, Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

2013/04 – 2020/12

Assistant Investigator, Institute of Molecular and Genomic Medicine, National Health Research Institutes

2008/03 – 2013/03

Postdoctoral fellow, Institute of Molecular Medicine and Experimental Immunology, University of Bonn, Germany

2007/02 – 2008/01

Postdoctoral fellow, Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

1998/07 – 2000/06

Research assistant, Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

研究興趣

Cancers are among the leading causes of death worldwide and account for 8.2 million deaths in 2012 based on the statistical analysis from WHO. Common used therapeutic strategies at present are designed to remove or shrink the tumor mass through surgery or induction of tumor death by nonspecific cytotoxic agents. During the past two decades, due to the better understanding of cancer pathogenesis, targeted therapy and immunotherapy have been extensively developed and utilized in cancer treatment. In principle, immunotherapy aims to generate effective T cell response for direct killing of tumor cells and induce long-term immune surveillance against cancers. The antigen specificity, life span and effector functions of the resultant T cells from immunotherapies may determine their efficacy. Moreover, the inhibitory mechanisms in tumor microenvironment may also influence the efficacy of the cancer immunotherapy. Dr. Huang has profound experiences working on immune cell interactions in the liver microenvironment and also on T-cell engineering and currently is developing immunotherapies for treatment of cancers based on these well-established immunological knowledge and technologies in the laboratory.

Immunotherapy for CHB and malignancies

During chronic viral infections or malignancies, there are usually monoclonal T cell response      detected and most of the Ag-specific T cells undergo exhaustion or apoptosis rapidly after activation. T-cell engineering to introduce genes encoding viral or tumor antigen specific T cell receptors (TCRs) with high avidity or chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) with unique Ag recognition bypassing MHC restriction into activated CD8+ T cells for adoptive cell transfer (ACT) for treatment of malignancies or chronic hepatitis B has been developed and proved to elicit significant clinical responses in patients with melanoma or B-cell leukemia or HBV clearance in preclinical mouse model. Up to now, in addition to TCR and CAR genes, genes encoding co-stimulatory molecules to prevent apoptosis or enhance survival, chemokine receptors to promote T-cell homing and Th1 cytokines to induce inflammation have been used in T-cell engineering for ACT. We aim to study how these effector T cells control its lifespan intrinsically upon stimulation of cognate antigen and co-stimulation/co-inhibition in the tumor or liver microenvironment and how T-cell exhaustion is induced in these intratumoral or intrahepatic T cells. We hypothesize that activated T cells would adjust their metabolic status upon encounter with the cognate antigen, proper co-stimulatory signals to facilitate their aerobic glycolysis, protein translation and lipid synthesis, which suppress apoptosis and therefore prolong the life span of the T cells under regular inflammatory condition in secondary lymphoid organs. However, when entering tumor/liver microenvironment and encountering inhibitory mechanisms, the activated T cells no longer maintain their metabolic status and switch on/off certain metabolic regulation, which promotes T-cell exhaustion. We now are investigating the detailed mechanisms responsible for regulating T-cell survival in the tumor/liver and apply the acquired knowledge in T-cell engineering of CAR T cells for treatment of malignancies and chronic HBV infections

Metabolic reprograming of myeloid cells during tumor progression and during inflammation

Myeloid cells have been shown to be involved in regulation of immune system as well as in promotion of tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Dr. Huang’s lab is currently investigating the metabolic status of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and inflammatory monocytes/macrophages and expecting to elucidate the underlying mechanisms responsible for the induction and maintenance of these myeloid cells during tumor progression or inflammation, which may benefit the design of therapeutic strategies for treatment of clinical metastatic disease, Dr. Huang’s lab has found that glycolytic pathway played an important role in maintenance of the cell number of MDSCs in tumor-bearing individual. Specific glycolytic enzymes highly up-regulated during tumor progression are under evaluation for their potential as drug targets. The ultimate goal of Dr. Huang’s lab is to develop therapeutic strategies for curing malignancies through combining the modality able to relieve the immunosuppression induced by MDSCs and immunotherapy e.g. cancer vaccines or ACT.

榮譽與獲獎

1998  Shen Fong-Wen Award for excellent master student.

2007    Award for excellent Ph.D thesis, Liver Disease Prevention &Treatment Research Foundation.

2007    The 17th Annual Wang Ming-Ning Award for medical Ph.D thesis

2011    BONFOR research prize, Research Commission of Medical School of University of Bonn, Germany

學術著作

  1. Wang HW, Li HH, Wu SC, Tang CK, Yu HY, Chang YC, Sung PS, Liu WL, Su MP, Yu GY, Huang LR, Chen CH, Hsieh SL. CLEC5A mediates Zika virus-induced testicular damage. J Biomed Sci. 2023 Feb 17;30(1):12.
  2. Huang KH, Liu YT, Pan PY, Lo CF, Liu KL, Yeh TK, Huang LR*, Tsou LK*. Rejuvenating hepatic tumor microenvironment immunity with a phosphatidylserine-targeting small molecule drug conjugate. Biomed Pharmacother.2022 Jul;151:113084. *Co-corresponding author.
  3. Lo CF, Chiu TY, Liu YT, Huang LR, Yeh TK, Huang KH, Liu KL, Hsu CY, Fang MY, Huang YC, Hsu TA, Chen CT, Tsou LK. Synthesis and Evaluation of Small Molecule Drug Conjugates Harnessing Thioester-Linked Maytansinoids. Pharmaceutics. 2022 Jun 21;14(7):1316.
  4. Cheng YH, Ko YC, Ku HJ, Huang CC, Yao YC, Liao YT, Chen YT, Huang SF, Huang LR*. Novel Paired Cell Lines for the Study of Lipid Metabolism and Cancer Stemness of Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 May 26;10:821224. *Corresponding author.
  5. Liu YT§, Tseng TC §, Soong RS §, Peng CY, Cheng YH, Huang SF, Chuang TH, Kao JH and Huang LR* A novel spontaneous hepatocellular carcinoma mouse model for studying T-cell exhaustion in the tumor microenvironment. J Immunother Cancer. 2018 Dec 7;6(1):144. doi: 10.1186/s40425-018-0462-3. *Corresponding author. (§equal contribution)
  6. Hsu WC, Chen MY, Hsu SC, Huang LR, Kao CY, Cheng WH, Pan CH, Wu MS, Yu GY, Hung MS, Leu CM, Tan T., Su YW DUSP6 mediates T cell receptor-engaged glycolysis and retains TFH cell differentiation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Aug 21;115(34):E8027-E8036. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1800076115.
  7. Tseng, TC, Huang LR*. Immunopathogenesis of hepatitis B virus. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2017;216(S8):S765-70. Review article. *Corresponding author.
  8. Jian SL, Chen WW, Su YC, Su YW, Chuang TH, Hsu SC and Huang LR* Glycolysis regulates the expansion of myeloid-derived suppressor cells in tumor-bearing hosts through prevention of ROS-mediated apoptosis. Cell Death & Disease, 2017, 8, e2779; doi:10.1038/cddis.2017.192. *Corresponding author.
  9. Huang LR, Wohlleber D, Reisinger F, Jenne CN, Cheng RL, Abdullah Z, Schildberg FA, Odenthal M, Dienes HP, van Rooijen N, Schmitt E, Garbi N, Croft M, Kurts C, Kubes P, Protzer U, Heikenwalder M and Knolle PA Intrahepatic myeloid-cell aggregates enable local proliferation of CD8 T cells and successful immunotherapy against chronic viral liver infection. Nat Immunol. 14:574-583, 2013
  10. Huang LR, Gäbel YA, Graf S, Arzberger S, Kurts C, Heikenwalder M, Knolle PA, and Protzer U. Transfer of HBV genomes using low doses of adenovirus vectors leads to persistent infection in immune competent mice, Gastroenterology 142:1447-50, 2012

專利

  1. 可增強抗腫瘤與抗病毒T細胞存活與其功能性之方法與組合物。黃麗蓉，許素菁。中華民國專利證書號碼：I731268。專利日期：June, 2021。
  2. Method using heat shock protein inhibitor for treating hepatitis and hepatoma, Hui-Ching Wang, Ting-Chung Yen, Li-Rung Huang, Patent No.: US9687499B2, Patent date: Jun. 27, 2017
  3. 熱休克蛋白抑制劑用於製備治療B型肝炎或肝癌之醫藥組合物的用途。王慧菁，顏廷忠，黃麗蓉, 103021TWI , Pending, 2014
  4. Vaccination strategies, Percy A. Knolle, Mathias Heikenwalder, Ulrike Protzer, Li-Rung Huang, Patent No.: CN105451766 A, Publication date: Mar 30, 2016
  5. Vaccination strategies, Percy A. Knolle, Li-Rung Huang, Mathias Heikenwalder, Ulrike Protzer, Patent No.: US20160008460 A1, Publication date: Jan 14, 2016
  6. Vaccination strategy, Percy A. Knolle, Ulrike Protzer, Mathias Heikenwalder, Li-Rung Huang, Patent No.: EP2958587 A1, Publication date: Dec 30, 2015
  7. Vaccination strategies, Percy A. Knolle, Mathias Heikenwalder, Ulrike Protzer, Li-Rung Huang, Patent No.: CA2902362 A1, Publication date: Aug 28, 2014
  8. Vaccination strategies, Percy A. Knolle, Mathias Heikenwalder, Ulrike Protzer, Li-Rung Huang, Patent No.: WO2014128305 A1, Publication date: Aug 28, 2014
  9. Recombinant plasmid and method for expressing hepatitis B viral antigens and virions in vivo, Pei-Jer Chen, Li-Rung Huang, Hui-Lin Wu and Ding-Shinn Chen, Patent No.: US 7,452,696 B2, Patent date: Nov. 18, 2008
  10. 一種用以於活體中表現b型肝炎病毒抗原的重組質體及方法。 陳培哲, 黃麗蓉，吳慧琳及陳定信, Patent No.: TW 098107943, Patent date: Dec. 20, 2005​

 

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