Positions
- Assistant Professor
-
Center for Cell and Gene Therapy
Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, US
- Member
-
Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX
- Member
-
Chemical Physical & Structural Biology Graduate Program
Immunology & Microbiology Graduate Program
Baylor College of Medicine
Addresses
- Office (Office)
-
1102 BATES
Suite 1770
Houston, TX 77030
United States
Education
- Postdoctoral Training at University of Washington
- 12/2018 - Seattle, Washington United States
- PhD from MIT
- 09/2015 - Cambridge, Massachusetts United States
- Biology
- BS from North Carolina State University
- 05/2009 - Raleigh, North Carolina United States
- Biochemistry
Professional Interests
- Cellular immunotherapy
- Mammalian synthetic biology
- Protein design and engineering
- Transcription factor networks
Professional Statement
The Foight lab develops new molecular interventions to improve the control and performance of immune cell therapies. To create these new enhancements for engineered cell therapies, we use approaches from protein engineering and design, mammalian synthetic biology, and immune cell engineering. Cellular therapies offer an exciting prospect for treatment of cancer and other diseases. Achieving more effective cellular therapies requires exquisite control of the functional, disease-fighting state of the cell type being employed.The transcription factor networks underlying T-cell exhaustion, memory, and effector states have been extensively characterized in recent years. Genetically engineered T-cell therapies offer the opportunity to encode proteins to regulate these networks to favor the most functional T-cell states for fighting tumors. Cell therapies need to be able to dynamically adapt to changes in their environment, such as the harsh conditions found in the tumor microenvironment. Our goal is to create new molecular technologies to enable dynamic reprogramming of transcription factor networks, starting with T cells, and expanding to other types of immune cells or stem cell platforms for cell therapy.
Websites
Selected Publications
- Foight, G.W., Wang, Z., Wei, C.T., Greisen, P.J., Warner, K., Cunningham-Bryant, D., Park, K., Brunette, T.J., Sheffler, W., Baker, D., & Maly, D.J. "Multi-input chemical control of protein dimerization for programming graded cellular responses." Nat Biotechnol. 2019;37(10):1209-1216. Pubmed PMID: 31501561
- Foight, G.W., & Keating, A.E. "Comparison of the peptide binding preferences of three closely related TRAF paralogs: TRAF2, TRAF3, and TRAF5." Protein Sci.. 2016;25:1273-1289. Pubmed PMID: 26779844
- Foight, G.W., Ryan, J.A., Gullá, S., Letai, A., & Keating, A.E. "Designed BH3 peptides with high affinity and specificity for targeting Mcl-1 in cells." ACS Chem Bio. 2014;9(9):1962-1968. Pubmed PMID: 25052212
- Foight, G.W., & Keating, A.E. "Locating herpesvirus viral Bcl-2 homologs in the specificity landscape of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 proteins." J Mol Bio. 2015;427:2468-2490. Pubmed PMID: 26009469
Intellectual Property
- Reagents and methods for controlling protein function and interaction
- Product Patent #62/775,171 (Pending)
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