Xiaoli Huang

Provide expert scientific leadership in non-clinical pharmacology (including PK/PD/toxicology) study design, execution, QC, and data interpretation/reporting for gene therapy product in cancer treatment; Prepare briefing document and interact with regulatory agencies. Define clinical trial strategy and synopsis with KOLs and consultant. Plan, manage and supervise projects between contractors, collaborators and internal R&D team, including in vitro and in vivo pharmacology studies; Select contract research organizations, design, plan and oversight critical pre-clinical studies; Together with management contribute to strategy, on-goal delivery, and prioritization; Prepare reports, papers, and other scientific documents presenting the data generated by external partners and Asgard R&D team, as well as reports to submit to grant funding agencies; Contribute to organization tasks.

Draft product development plan and lead the antibody drug conjugate (ADC) project according to the development plan and timeline. Responsible for the preclinical development of ADC including target validation, in vitro and in vivo experiments, pharmacokinetic and toxicology, and CMC. Coordinate with different CROs. Prepare documentation for due diligent.

Lead antibody drug conjugate project and design antibody drug Conjugates with different antibodies, conjugation technologies, linkers and payloads to optimize the efficacy in different cancer indications. Plan and carry out in vitro assays ( binding affinity via flow cytometry, cytotoxicity, internalization, cell cycle distribution and apoptosis) and in vivo assay to select lead candidates. Responsible for humanization of the antibodies.

Work with both functional blocking antibody and antibody drug conjugate to validate their functions and mechanism of actions in different cancer indications with various in vitro cell based assays and flow cytometry.

The research project is to investigate the function of galectin-3 in cancer cells by using synthesized small molecule inhibitors. Techniques: Cell culture (monolayer and suspension) and cell banking, flow cytometry, immunofluorescence microscopy, confocal microscopy, migration assays (wound-healing assay and boyden chamber migration assay), western blot, MTT assay, fluorescence polarization, and luciferase reporter assay.

The thesis title is 'On the Breast Cancer Stem Cell Selectivity of Salinomycin and its Structural Analogues'. During the PhD study, I mainly focused on the effect of antibiotic salinomycin and salinomycin analogues on breast cancer and breast cancer stem cells and the mechanisms of actions. Techniques: Cell culturing and cell banking, flow cytometry, Cell based toxicity assays (MTT, Alamar blue, and neutral red), western blot, cell migration assay (wound-healing and boyden chamber migration assay), colony formation assay with soft agar, immunofluorescence microscopy, confocal microscopy, holographic micorscopy, K+ channel assay, enzymatic assay (PKC activity assay), magnetic cell separation, microarray.

Participated two research projects ‘Inhibition of Colorectal Cancer Progress by Ovol2, a novel beta-catenin/TCF Target gene’ and ‘Pygo2 associates with MLL2 histone methyltransferase (HMT) and GCN5 histone acetyltransferase (HAT) complexes to augment Wnt target gene expression and breast cancer stem-like cell expansion’. Techniques: Molecular cloning including design primers, PCR, plasmids extraction, and E.coli transformation; RNA extraction, real-time PCR, cell culture and cell banking, transfection, virus packaging, siRNA luciferase reporter assay, western blot, chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP), and elctrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA).

Besides taking all the compulsory courses, I also started little my research experience: 2005, applied for research and innovation experiment, and finished the paper 'The impact of depression in mice after electrical stimulation on head' 2005—2007, Participated in work-study, helping teachers to do the basic physiology experiments in animal physiology laboratory From July to August in 2005, went to Taibai Mountain Nature Reserve, Shandong Yantai Marine and Kunyu Mountain to carry out field experiment, participated in making plants, insects and marine life specimens and applied ecology research methods.