Yumeng Mao

Uppsala University

yumeng.mao@igp.uu.se

Keywords

cancer immunotherapy, Drug Discovery, Drug resistance, genome editing, immune supression, solid cancer

Key publications

Our published research

Nagarajan D., Parracho R.T., Corujo D., Xie M., Kutkaite G., Olsen T.K., Rubies Bedos M., Salehi M., Baryawno N., Menden M., Chen X., Buschbeck M. and Mao Y.#, Epigenetic regulation of cell state by H2AFY governs immunogenicity in high-risk neuroblastoma, Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2024. #: corresponding author. PMID: 39255035
Papakyriacou I., Kutkaite G., Rubies Bedos M., Nagarajan D., Alford L., Menden M. and Mao Y.#, Loss of NEDD8 causes vulnerability to immune checkpoint blockade in triple-negative breast cancers, Nature Communications 15, 3581 (2024). #: corresponding author.
Tunali G., Rubes Bedos M., Nagarajan D., Fridh P., Papakyriacou I., Mao Y.,# IL-1 receptor-associated kinase 3 acts an immune checkpoint in myeloid cells to limit cancer immunotherapy, Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2023 Apr 3;133(7):e161084.. #: corresponding author.
Natoli M., Bonito N., Robinson J.D., Ghaem-Maghami S.,# Mao Y.,# Ovarian cancer intrinsic mechanisms confer resistance to immune checkpoint blockade antibodies, Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy, 2020 Aug;69(8):1391-1401. #: corresponding authors.
Mao Y., van Hoef V., Zhang X., Wennerberg E., Lorent J., Witt K., Sanz L.M., Liang S., Murray S.M., Larsson O., Kiessling R., Lundqvist A., IL-15 activates mTOR and primes stress-activated gene-expression leading to prolonged anti-tumor capacity of NK cells, Blood 128(11), July 2016
Mao Y., Lessons learned in industry. Science, Vol. 365, Issue 6459, pp. 1342, 2019.

The complete publication list can be found at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yx76OvsAAAAJ&hl=en

SciLifeLab / Contact / Yumeng Mao

Research interests

The research group aims to uncover mechanistic insights of immune suppression mediated by solid tumors. There are three research lines:

We utilize genome-wide CRISPR screens to reveal cancer intrinsic resistance mechanisms to immunotherapy.
We dissect tumor-driven immune suppressive mechanisms in the innate immune system.
We take advantage of the academic drug discovery capabilities at SciLifeLab to translate our novel discoveries to early-stage drug discovery projects.

We have over 15 years of experience in experimental models for cancer/immune interplay. Currently, we are developing new capabilities and data analysis pipelines using scRNA-seq and spatial transcriptomics, in order to generate deep understanding of the tumor micro-environment in human tumors and mouse models.

We are most interested in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), high-risk childhood neuroblastoma and immune resistant melanoma.

The Mao group is generously supported by the SciLifeLab Fellows Program, Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), Swedish Research Council, Swedish Cancer Society (Cancerfonden), Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation (Barncancerfonden) and the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology (IGP) at Uppsala University.

Group members

Vaishnavi Iyer, post-doctoral fellow (SSMF funded)
Irineos Papakyriacou, PhD student (neddylation)
Marta Rubies Bedos, PhD student (resistant melanoma)
Rebeca Tomás Parracho, PhD student (high-risk neuroblastoma)
Liam Patrick Alford, PhD student (innate immunity)
Yonglin Lu, research assistant (scRNAseq and spatial omics)
Eirini Voutsinou, Master student
Fatemeh Ranjbar, Master student

Contact

yumeng.mao@igp.uu.se