I am a cancer immunologist, and my research focuses on immunometabolism in T cells and macrophages. My laboratory explores how the metabolic crosstalk between cancer cells and tumor-infiltrating immune cells shapes the immunosuppressive microenvironment that helps tumors evade immune clearance. Our ultimate goal is to exploit this knowledge to develop interventions to reprogram the tumor microenvironment, reverse immunosuppression and broaden and boost the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.

My interests in cancer biology and signaling cascades began during my undergraduate and postgraduate training toward a master’s degree at National Taiwan University and grew over the course of my graduate studies toward a PhD at the University of Minnesota. During my postdoctoral training with Susan Kaech at Yale University, I focused on how T cells utilize aerobic glycolysis to support productive T cell immune responses and demonstrated how cancer cells evade T cell immunosurveillance by depriving infiltrating T cells of glucose, which is consumed in large amounts by malignant cells.

I was recruited as an adjunct Ludwig scientist and tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Oncology at the University of Lausanne in 2015 and became a full member of the Ludwig Institute in 2023, when I was promoted to full professor at the University of Lausanne.

My work is establishing a fundamental understanding of  how tumor cells evade immunosurveillance through their metabolism, and how we can preprogram the metabolic machinery of immune cells to improve immunotherapy. My work is also delineating links between metabolic processes, signaling cascades and epigenetic programming in the activation and differentiation of T cells and macrophages.

I have been fortunate to receive several awards, including the Swiss Bridge Award, Anna Fuller Award, Cancer Research Institute-CLIP investigator award, Melanoma Research Alliance-SITC Young investigator Award and a European Research Council Starting Grant. I was recently named a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization’s Young Investigator Programme. I am also a member of the editorial board of the journal Immunometabolism.