▶︎ CANCELED: Frontiers in Chemical Biology Seminar

My laboratory is broadly interested in the molecular mechanisms by which chemical signals modulate immunity and infection. These chemical signals (metabolites) may be derived from host metabolism (endogenous metabolites) or the environment (diet, microbiota, therapeutics) and have been challenging to mechanistically elucidate. To dissect the complex mechanisms that specific microbiota species and metabolites control health and disease, my laboratory has i) employed key animal models to discover new protective factors from specific microbiota species as well as ii) developed chemical methods to characterize metabolite-protein targets and elucidated their mechanisms of action. These studies have revealed novel microbiota protective factors and unpredicted metabolite-protein interactions, which have afforded new therapeutics and biomarkers for immunotherapy against infection and cancer. For this lecture, I would present our ongoing microbiota studies in cancer immunotherapy and chemical proteomics of microbiota metabolites involved in the modulation of host immunity.