Yingjie Bian

Associate Reaearcher Aug 2016 -

China

2016-now Assistant Researcher, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Vaccines based on HBV antigens to treat Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB) infection.

1) Nano-vaccine based on HBV proteins. Antigens and MPLA adjuvant were packaged into the nano-material PEG-PE to form PEG-PE-MPLA vaccine, which was about 10-20 nm and showing lymphatic targeting characteristic. This nano-vaccine could enhance antigen immunogenicity and promote its clinical transformation.

2) Polypeptide vaccine based on HBV core or HBsAg antigens. We constructed core or HBsAg based-polypeptides fused with CTL epitopes from HBV antigens as therpy-vaccine to CHB.

University of Chinese Academy of Sciences 2013 - 2016

Field of study: Immunology, Vaccinology, Virololgy
Degree: Ph.D

Persistent HBV infection still represents a substantial threat to public health, despite the existence of an effective prophylactic vaccine. More than 2 billion people worldwide are infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV), and 350 million become chronic HBV carriers. Thus, there remains an urgent need for effective treatment strategies to limit the enormous burden of viral hepatitis on global health. How to break or bypass the tolerance and induce anti-HBV immune responses has been a major challenge in the development of HBV therapeutic vaccines. The correlation between high viral antigen load and the dysfunction of the immune system in chronic infections has been previously documented. 

1. Overcoming Immune Tolerance in Chronic Hepatitis B Infection by Vaccination.The purpose was to explore candidates for vaccination to break immune tolerance in CHB and induce therapeutic effects for persistent HBV infection.We compared the immune status of HBV antigens in clinical CHB patients. HBV antigens have different immune tolerant status. Its vaccination efficiently inhibited HBV infection to host, same as the conventional HBsAg vaccines. However, unlike HBsAg, which induced immune tolerance in CHB infection, it is much less tolerant in CHB. 

2. The bi-specific role of a monoclonal antibody to HBV in the therapy of HBV infection and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).We constructed and explored a specific monoclonal antibody to HBV antigen by phage display. And a stable CHO cell line that highly expressed the antibody was screened. Then, the neutralization of the antibody was tested through AAV-HBV1.3 mice model, and we found the antibody can efficiently cleared HBV virions in vivo. As HBV can’t infect the liver of mice, the blockade of HBV infection to hepatocytes can’t be tested directly in mice. To overcome the problem, HepG2-hNTCP in vitro system for HBV infection was used. All the results showed that it could efficiently clear HBV in vivo and block HBV infection in vitro. Surprisingly, we found that this antibody could specifically bind to human hepatocellular cell lines, including HepG2, HuH7, SMMC-7721 and Bel-7402. The MTT experiments even showed that this antibody could inhibit the proliferation of HepG2 cells. These experiments indicated that this antibody should have bi-specific roles both in neutralize HBV infection and therapy to HCC.

University of Science and Technology, Beijing 2006 - 2010

Field of study: Biotechnology
Degree: bachelor

The expression and purification of Williams syndrome transcription factor (WSTF) . WSTF is a multifaceted protein that is involved in several nuclear processes, including replication, transcription, and the DNA damage response, while the crystal structure of WSTF and how it works in not determined yet. Through the prokaryotic E.coli expression system, I generated truncated recombinant WSTF proteins of Homo sapiens, Danio rerio, Xenopus laevis, and expressed the recombinant WSTF in E.coli. The proteins were purified through Ni-NTA, GST beads, ion-exchange chromatograph and gel filtration.