Yuxing Cheng

Biologics Discovery

Isolation of plasma cells from bone marrow cells from mice immunized with MPER / liposome and screening for MPER-specific plasma cells using high-throughput cell-based assay; Cloning and expression of murine Ig genes from single B cells and testing of antibody specificity using ELISA and BIAcore; Hybridoma cell culture and antibody purification from cell culture supernatant using protein-G and protein A; Immunization of BALB/c mice with MPER/ liposome and antibody purification from sera; Transfection of 293T cells to expression Env protein and determination of its antigenicity using flow cytometry; Preparation of pseudoviruses and corresponding mutants to determine the effect of mutations of Env protein on viral fitness using TZM-bl infection assay;

Cloning and expression of HIV- 2 Vpx protein using E. Coli expression system, yeast expression system and mammalian expression system; Purification of Vpx protein using ion-exchange chromatography and size-exclusion chromatography;

Study of signal transduction pathways downstream of plant immune receptors; Validation of T-DNA insertion by PCR amplification and sequencing;

To elicit broadly-neutralizing antibodies against HIV-1 with structure-informed immunogen design and to screen for MPER-specific antibodies with high-throughput cell-based immunoasssays.

To study the effect of C3d as molecular adjuvant to enhance the humoral immune response by epitope-based DNA vaccine