The Xu lab focuses on Nanobodies. Nanobodies are antigen-binding entities derived from the heavy chain-only antibodies of camelid animals, and they retain full antigen specificity at a very small size (13 kDa). They can penetrate tissues and recognize epitopes that are often inaccessible to conventional antibodies. Such “hidden” epitopes also have the potential to be conserved across viral strains, making nanobodies ideal antiviral drugs with great cross-reactivity to multiple viral pathogens. The long-term research goal of my lab is to establish efficient nanobody development platforms and use these platforms to produce novel biological molecules across multiple therapeutic areas, including infectious diseases and immuno-oncology. Short-term viral targets for nanobody countermeasure development includes SARS-CoV-2, Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1), Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), Human metapneumovirus (HMPV), Henipaviruses (HNV), Arenaviruses (ARV) and Hantavirus (HTNV).

Ph.D. positions to study the following research topics are available:

• Nanobody platforms development: transgenic mouse models, phage display, yeast display, mRNA display, directed evolution, deep sequencing.
• Nanobody identification and characterization against: Covid, HIV, Paramyxovirus, Arenaviruses and Hantavirus with pandemic potential, Pneumoviruses, Blood Brain Barrier CNS drug delivery and Cancer.
• Nanobody engineering : bispecific, multi-specific, antibody-nanobody chimera, in vitro maturation, nanobody humanization, half-life, pharmacokinetics, manufacturability

Please contact Jianliang Xu Ph.D. ( [email protected] ) for more information or directly apply to the graduate program by following this link: https://gradapply.gsu.edu/