School of Biomedical Sciences cordially invites you to join the following Post-doctoral Fellow (PDF) Seminar:

Date: 8 October 2024 (Tuesday)
Time: 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: Seminar Room 1, G/F, Laboratory Block, 21 Sassoon Road
Host: Dr. Haifeng Fu

Light refreshments will be served, please register via the below link by 4 Oct 2024 (Fri).

Registration: https://hku.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Bplw1EdaFE9E2O

Super resolved ligand-receptor interaction discovery by fusing spatial RNA-seq and histology images
Dr. Lingyu Li (Post-doctoral Fellow)

[Supervisor: Professor Yuanhua Huang]

The breakthroughs of spatial transcriptomics (ST) offer great promise for studying cell-cell communication in complex tissues. However, most spatial RNA-seq technologies (e.g., Visium) suffered from limited resolution, hindering the discovery of detailed ligand-receptor interaction (LRI). Here, we introduce FineST, a contrastive deep learning model to fuse the spatial transcriptomes and histology images, for imputing super-resolved gene expression. Particularly, it focuses on uncovering fine-grained LRIs at sub-spot and single-cell levels, with supporting multifaced functional analyses. For the first time, a recent VisiumHD dataset was used for gold-standard ground truth, evidencing FineST’s substantial improvement in imputation accuracy. With matched Visium and Xenium datasets on breast cancer, FineST further demonstrated its capability of identifying detailed and region-specific LRIs uniquely captured from the imputed ST with high resolution. Last, we applied FineST to a Visium-only dataset on nasopharyngeal carcinoma, further proving its high effectiveness in detailed LRI discovery to elucidate signaling in tumor microenvironment.

The development of hydrogel-based and phase-separation peptide-based mRNA therapeutics

Dr. Chaiyaporn Kuwentrai (Post-doctoral Fellow)

[Supervisor: Professor Jiandong Huang]

 Overcoming the challenges associated with messenger RNA (mRNA) instability and poor cellular expression is critical for the successful application of mRNA-based therapies. In this work, novel hydrogel-based and phase-separation peptide-based drug delivery platforms have been developed to enhance the efficiency of mRNA expression. Hydrogels provide a dynamic environment that promotes the controlled release of drug molecules leading to long-lasting drug activity. Alternatively, phase-separating peptide coacervates form nanoscale carriers capable of effective membrane permeation and cytosolic delivery of mRNAs. Here we report hydrogel-based and phase-separating peptide-based mRNA formulations that generate robust protein expression in both in vitro and in vivo systems. Hydrogel-based mRNA therapies stimulate potent cancer eradication and tertiary lymphoid structure (TLS) formation. Phase-separation peptide-based mRNA vaccines induce strong cellular immunity against cancer and SARs-CoV-2 antigens.  In conclusion, hydrogel-based and phase-separating peptide-based mRNA formulations demonstrate the therapeutic potential for treating cancer and infectious diseases.

All are welcome.