Gloria Hoi Ying Lin 連凱瑩

  • Fellowship in 2012 at Ontario Cancer Institute

Gloria Hoi Ying Lin completed her Hon. BSc in Immunology at University of Toronto with high distinction in 2006. After obtaining her Hon. BSc degree, she joined Dr. Tania H. Watts' laboratory (Univerisity of Toronto, Dept of Immunology) and received her PhD degree in 2011.

During Gloria’s graduate study, she has developed a great interest in understanding how costimulatory molecules fine tune immune response.  She successfully identified the differential requirement for 4-1BBL, a T cell costimulatory molecule, during severe versus mild respiratory influenza infection. In addition, with the use of irradiation chimeras, various genetic knockout mice and adoptive transfer techniques, she has delineated the cell types involved in 4-1BB-dependent CD8 memory T cell survival. With these findings, she further applied the knowledge in a tumor adoptive T cell transfer immunotherapy model.   Furthermore, She challenges herself by exploring new techniques and experimental models, such as IL-2/anti-IL-2  monoclonal antibody complex treatment, chronic infection model, viral vector vaccination, and even taking part in human study. Her ultimate research goal is to translate scientific knowledge into therapeutics for better patient care.

Currently

Gloria is a research scientist at Trillium Therapeutics Inc, Toronto, Canada. She design and execute in vitro and in vivo studies with the goal of developing innovative therapies for the treatment of cancer, and supervise technical staff and manage resources across different projects.

She was a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Tak Mak's laboratory at the Ontario Cancer Institute. She received a Croucher fellowship award in 2012. 

With her interest in T cell co-stimulation, she expands her horizon to the co-inhibitory B7-family members, B7-H3 and B7-H4.  These two co-inhibitory ligands are widely expressed on the surface of tumors, and in most cases, high expressions of these molecules were correlated with poor prognosis and low lymphocyte infiltration. Although many studies have demonstrated their negative roles in modulation of T cell response, their cognate receptors remained unknown. In Gloria's post-doctoral training, her research goal is to identify the physiological receptors of B7-H3 and B7-H4 and to further understand their biological roles in vivo.