Wayne Paes
As a senior scientist in immuno-oncology at Grey Wolf Therapeutics and the University of Oxford, my current interests focus on assessing the effects of modulating the antigen processing pathway in cancer cells through the development of novel enzyme inhibitors which are able to enhance anti-tumour immunity. This is achieved through in-depth profiling of the immune landscape in an array of different cancers, specialising in mass-spectrometry-based techniques to identify targetable cancer-specific antigens for the development of next-generation immunotherapeutic approaches. Previously, at the University of Oxford's Target Discovery Institute, I developed a novel epitope discovery pipeline using de novo sequencing to identify the first viral peptides generated by proteasome-catalysed peptide splicing and presented for immune recognition by CD8+ T cells in HIV-infected patients. I subsequently employed this pipeline to experimentally elucidate the biochemical signatures of proteasome-catalysed peptide splicing, which will now facilitate prediction of spliced peptides from protein sequences and provide wider insight into proteasomal function. These projects have led to significant advancement in our understanding of the antigen processing pathway, allowing more accurate interrogation of a much wider array of the previously 'hidden' non-canonical antigenic repertoire that contributes to immune recognition in both infectious diseases and cancer.
Abstracts this author is presenting: