Evan Perry
East Tennessee State University
Stephen Fesik lab
Cancer cells evade the immune response by upregulating the expression of an inhibitory ligand (PD-L1) that suppresses the anti-cancer activity of T-cells. Therapeutic antibodies that target the PD-L1 signaling pathway have had inspiring success re-activating the patient's own T-cells to eradicate tumors in the clinical setting. My project is focused on using fragment and structure based design methodology to develop novel small molecule inhibitors of the PD-L1 signaling pathway that address some of the limitations of currently used therapeutic antibodies.