Xin Zhou

Xin Zhou’s research addresses global challenges in cancer therapy, particularly the need for innovative approaches to overcome drug resistance and target previously undruggable cellular pathways.

Cancer cells require large amounts of iron for rapid proliferation, which leads to a significant upregulation of Transferrin Receptor 1 (TfR1) on their cell surface. This receptor mediates cellular iron uptake by binding to transferrin. Her research team leveraged this phenomenon and the characteristic rapid internalization of TfR1 to develop a novel protein degrader: the Transferrin Receptor Targeting Chimera (TransTAC).   

TransTACs are precisely engineered bispecific antibodies that can address targets previously considered undruggable by traditional methods through membrane protein degradation. In in vitro cell experiments, they can efficiently degrade various membrane proteins such as EGFR, PD-L1, CD20, and Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR), demonstrating great potential in the treatment of diseases like cancer.   

She also developed new tools to study cellular pathways, enabling high spatiotemporal resolution analysis of phosphorylation and protein receptor activation events in immune and cancer cells.

Beyond cancer therapy, she has developed new methods to study tyrosine phosphorylation events in immune cells at high spatiotemporal resolution, a post-translational modification that governs how immune cells sense and respond to their environment. Through this approach, her team enabled the first imaging of PD-1 phosphorylation in T cells, a crucial immunosuppressive mechanism. These studies provide new insights into cellular pathways and open novel pharmacological strategies for controlling cell fate.