Gary Yiu Email & Phone Number

Cambridge, Ma, Us

• Lead the Antigen Processing and Presentation team to establish cellular platforms of antigen presentation. Over 50 specific antigen presenting cell lines, each expresses high level of a single HLA class I or class II proteins, were generated and validated by immunofluorescent staining and flow cytometry analysis. These cells with monoallelic HLA expression were crucial for the discovery and validation of specific HLA-restricted peptide epitopes of selected antigens in cancer and autoimmune diseases for the development of T cell therapy• Collaborate with multiple in-house functional teams and bioinformatics group to create a database of the identified HLA-restricted peptides • Supervise the design of tandem minigenes (TMGs) or full-length proteins to identify the peptide epitopes of selected antigens presented by antigen presenting cells expressing the monoallelic HLA of interest• Experienced in the isolation of primary immune cells and their stimulation and expansion into dendritic cells and peptide epitope-specific T cells• Coordinate the collaborative efforts across the Repertoire organization to functionally validate the TCRs identified by Repertoire’s proprietary DECODETM platform for various diseases • Team Lead for cell line generation and the development of multiple cell-based assays critical for proof-of-concept and MOA studies• Established collaborations with academic institutions for the studies of antigen presentation• Supervise and manage the research of junior scientists, setting objectives and managing deliverables and professional development

• Led protein production in suspension cultures of ExpiCHO and Expi293 cells from construct design, cell line generation, protein purification, and functional validation • Engineered and expressed recombinant proteins in human immune cells for cell-based assay development• Led the efforts of expressing recombinant TCRs in T cells for functional studies• Characterized immune cells using various immunoassay techniques such as multiplex cytokine assays and multi-color flow cytometry• Experienced in the expansion of target-specific T cells by peptide pulsing or co-culture with antigen presenting cells• Oversaw gene expression and cell signaling studies to improve and explore new areas of therapeutic platform development

Boston, Massachusetts, Us

• Program lead of two early-stage research programs to develop therapeutic proteins to treat devastating rare diseases – overseeing assay development, PD marker discovery, and animal studies• Managing CRO efforts for the development of an ELISA and a CRISPR knockout mouse model of a rare disease for in vivo pharmacological studies• Key member of several project teams to guide project development strategies and experimental designs of multiple proof-of-concept projects in therapeutic protein production and assay development• Led and supervised the production of high yields of therapeutic proteins from construct design and cell line generation to protein production in suspension cultures of CHO and HEK293 cells to support cell-based assays, in vivo pharmacokinetics studies, and efficacy assays in animal models of rare diseases• Developed cell-based/biochemical assays to validate the biological functions of therapeutic proteins• Validated and implemented an in vitro blood brain barrier assay to examine the ability of six therapeutic proteins to cross blood brain barrier for treating the neurological symptoms of multiple rare diseases• Supervised and managed research associates, setting objectives and managing deliverables and professional development

Lexington, Massachusetts, Us

• Engineered therapeutic proteins and optimized their culture conditions for high level expression in mammalian cell culture platforms • Generated stable cell lines of CHO and HEK293 cells that produce high yields of functional therapeutic proteins• Studied the biological properties of therapeutic proteins to improve their stability and efficacy for treating rare diseases• Developed cell-based and biochemical assays that are crucial for examining the efficacy and therapeutic effects of engineered proteins• Purified therapeutic proteins from conditioned medium of cultured cells and validated their biological functions• Co-inventor of a patent entitled “Recombinant human ada2 and ada2 fusion proteins and methods for treating ada2 deficiencies

Lexington, Massachusetts, Us

• Engineered therapeutic proteins and optimized their culture conditions for high level expression in mammalian cell culture platforms • Generated stable cell lines of CHO and HEK293 cells that produce high yields of functional therapeutic proteins• Studied the biological properties of therapeutic proteins to improve their stability and efficacy for treating rare diseases• Developed cell-based and biochemical assays that are crucial for examining the efficacy and therapeutic effects of engineered proteins• Purified therapeutic proteins from conditioned medium of cultured cells and validated their biological functions

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Gb

• Characterized the inhibitory effects of small molecules/compounds on the growth of cancer cells and the modulation of major oncogenic signaling pathways • Identified and characterized potential drug targets in the cell signaling pathways of cancer cells for their importance in regulating cancer survival and proliferation • Developed cell-based models to examine the oncogenicity of potential drug targets and the relevant cancer signaling pathways• Presented progress reports, target validation packages, and project proposals to senior management

Boston, Ma, Us

• Discovered that chemokine receptors CCR-2, CXCR-2 and XCR-1 are up-regulated by NFAT1 and their increased expression in breast cancer cells promotes invasion upon stimulation by their respective ligands • Identified glypican by cDNA microarray as an important putative NFAT target gene that promotes breast cancer cell invasion by facilitating non-canonical Wnt signaling• Identified COX-2 by cDNA microarray as a NFAT target gene and demonstrated that NFAT promotes breast cancer cell invasion through the induction of COX-2 and the synthesis of prostaglandins• Demonstrated that AKT inhibits breast cancer cell migration and invasion through the ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of NFAT1, mediated by the E3 ubiquitin ligase HDM2• Developed breast cancer cell lines that have NFAT1 or GPC6 genes silenced by specific siRNA, which were used for the identification of genes important for breast cancer metastasis• Established breast cancer cell lines that have high inducible expression of NFAT1 and identified several putative NFAT1 downstream target genes that are important for cancer invasion

Us

• Identified Ep-CAM, prostasin, and clusterin as potential diagnostic and prognostic tumor markers in ovarian cancer• Identified several important cis-regulatory elements in the human SPARC and DOC-2 proximal promoter regions that are crucial to their efficient transcription and functions as tumor suppressor genes• Supervised research fellows and clinical fellows on their research on ovarian cancer

Us

• Identified a spliced truncated variant of p73 (with exon 2 missing), which is present only in ovarian cancer cells and is probably important for ovarian carcinogenesis• Demonstrated that normal trophoblast cell lines and tissues express significantly higher levels of DOC-2/hDab2 than choriocarcinoma cell lines and tissues from patients with gestational trophoblastic diseases• Demonstrated for the first time that SPARC expression in ovarian cancer cells is inversely correlated to the degree of malignancy and established that SPARC inhibits the proliferation of both normal and cancer cells, but induces apoptosis only in cancer cells

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Cell & Molecular Biology

M.Phil., Anatomical And Cellular Pathology

B.Sc. (Hons.), Biology & Biochemistry