Thinh-Phat Cao
Thinh-Phat Cao is a structural biologist at Monash University, specialising in the molecular principles that govern immune recognition. Thinh-Phat Cao’s research focuses on lipid mediated immunity, with a particular emphasis on elucidating the molecular logic driving unconventional T cell activation. His work aims to define how lipid antigens are processed and presented, and how these structural cues are decoded by T cell receptors to shape antigen specific adaptive immune responses. His recent first‑author publication in Nature Communications redefined long-standing assumptions about antigen presentation that had persisted for more than 30 years. In this study, he elucidated the structural mechanisms underlying an unprecedented antigen-presentation topology to T cells by a member of the lipid-antigen-presenting CD1 family. This work has opened new pathways for future dianogstic tools and targeted therapeutic development.
Abstracts this author is presenting: