Engineering T Cell Recognition: Insights into Antigen Discovery and Immunotherapy Design

Engineering T Cell Recognition: From Antigen Discovery to Programmable Immunotherapy In this episode of Unravelling T Cell Recognition: Insights from Immunology and AI, I am joined by Dr Nicholas Sgourakis, a leading researcher working at the interface of structural biology, immunology, protein engineering, and translational cancer therapeutics. This webinar explores one of the central challenges in cancer immunotherapy: how to identify and target peptide–HLA antigens in immunologically “cold” tumours, where antigen presentation is weak and immune surveillance is impaired. Dr Sgourakis presents elegant work showing how engineered MHC class I chaperones, including modified tapasin-based systems, can enhance antigen presentation, expand the observable immunopeptidome, and reveal actionable tumour targets that would otherwise remain hidden. The talk then moves into the next major translational challenge: HLA restriction. Dr Sgourakis discusses how structural and biochemical approaches can help map the cross-reactivity of existing TCRs and TCR-mimicking antibodies, and how programmable protein engineering platforms may allow the development of binders that target the same peptide across different HLA allotypes. Together, these advances point toward a future where immunotherapies can be made both more precise and more broadly applicable across patients. This session will be of interest to researchers and clinicians working in: • T cell immunology • antigen processing and presentation • cancer immunotherapy • neoantigen discovery • protein engineering • structural biology • computational immunology Speaker: Dr Nicholas Sgourakis Host: Dr Hashem Koohy Part of the webinar series: Unravelling T Cell Recognition: Insights from Immunology and AI #Immunology #CancerImmunotherapy #TCells #AntigenPresentation #Neoantigens #ProteinEngineering #StructuralBiology #ComputationalBiology #HLA #Immunotherapy