Feng Shao, PhD

Talk title: Activation of Antitumor Immunity by Bacteria-Derived Signals: Pyroptosis and Beyond

About Dr. Shao:

Feng Shao, PhD is an investigator and deputy director at National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), Beijing. He was a chemistry undergraduate of Peking University and obtained his PhD from University of Michigan (2003). Before joining NIBS (2005), he was a Damon Runyon Postdoc Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Shao’s research lies at the interface between bacterial pathogen and host inflammation. He identified most of the known cytosolic receptors for bacterial molecules, including caspase-11/4/5 for LPS and ALPK1 for ADP-heptose in LPS biosynthesis. He also identified gasdermin-D (GSDMD) whose cleavage by caspase-1/4/5/11 determines pyroptosis, critical for septic shock and other inflammatory diseases. His research establishes the gasdermin family of pore-forming proteins, re-defining pyroptosis as gasdermin-mediated programmed necrosis. Dr. Shao‘s work has been recognized by numerous awards including the Future Science Prize, the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology, HHMI International Early Career Award and the Protein Society Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, an associate member of EMBO, and a fellow of American Academy of Microbiology.