Bingxu Liu, Ph.D
Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Grand Prize Essay: Protons are the new first responders to danger: Human STING’s newfound function as a channel expands our understanding of immunity
Abstract:
The human immune system senses danger signals and carries out different responses. It remains a mystery how the Stimulator of Interferon Genes (STING), a critical innate immune sensor, can induce a wide range of downstream responses upon activation.
Using a combination of genetic, biochemical, and structural tools, my colleagues and I discovered that human STING plays a surprising role as a proton channel.
Identifying STING as the first immune-sensing channel extends our understanding of the functional diversity of immune responses. The agonist similarity and functional divergence between bacterial and human STING suggest the possibility of modularly engineering sensing and functional units of innate immune proteins for improved immunotherapies.
About Bingxu Liu:
Bingxu Liu grew up in a village town in Henna, the central part of China. He received undergraduate degrees from Zhejiang University and a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, where he works on exploring and overcoming the limitations of natural biological systems.