Dr. Dapeng Zhou

Regular Member

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Melanoma Medical Oncology/Immunology

Research Interests:

• T cell biology
• Antigen presentation
• Immunotherapy
• Therapeutic vaccines

The research in my laboratory is directed towards understanding the mechanisms by which T cells recognize antigens in cancer settings. A strong interest in our lab is to develop new candidate glycolipid drugs that stimulate and activate the immune system in cancer patients. Our current studies focus on synthetic glycolipid antigens which stimulate a unique type of T cells named as Natural Killer T (NKT) cells; natural tumor antigens which serve as targets for NKT cells; and strategies to combine the anti-cancer effect of NKT cells with other therapeutic approaches such as cancer vaccines.

Depending on the student’s interests, a tutorial in my laboratory will provide experience in generating cancer specific human T cell clones with the potential to be adoptively transferred to treat melanoma, leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma; working with mouse models of cancer and testing new drug candidates in such models; learning multiple color flow cytometry analysis with advanced instruments; and characterizing cancer antigens at the molecular level by highly quantitative and specific methods such as mass spectrometry.

Selected Publications:

Li Y, Teneberg S, Thapa T, Bendelac A, Levery SB, Zhou D (2008) Sensitive Detection of Isoglobo and Dlobo Series of Tetraglycosylceramides in Human Thymus Using Electrospray Ionization-Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry. Glycobiology. 18(2):158-65.

Li Y, Zhou D, Xia C, Wang PG, Levery SB (2008) Sensitive Quantitation of Isoglobotriaosylceramide in the Presence of Isobaric Components Using Electrospray Ionization-Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry. Glycobiology. 18(2):166-76.

Zhou D (2007) OX40 directly triggers the anti-cancer function of NKT cells. (Commentary). Journal of Clinical Investigation. 117: 3169-3172.

Zhou D, Mattner J, Cantu III C, Schrantz N, Yin N, Gao Y, Sagiv Y, Hudspeth K, Wu Y, Yamashita T, Teneberg S, Wang D, Proia R, Levery SB, Savage PB, Teyton L, Bendelac A (Epub 2004 Nov 11) Lysosomal glycosphingolipid recognition by NKT cells. Science. 2004 Dec 3;306(5702):1786-9.

Zhou D, Cantu III C, Sagiv Y, Schrantz N, Kulkarni AB, QI X, Mahuran DJ, Morales CR, Grabowsky GA, Benlagha, K, Salvage PB, Bendela AB, Teyton L. (Epub 2003 Dec 18) Editing of CD1-bound lipid antigens by endosomal lipid transfer proteins. Science. 2004 Jan 23;303(5657):523-7.

Additional Publications

Lab Homepage

Program Affiliations:

Program in Experimental Therapeutics

Program in Immunology