Joglekar Lab
Principal Investigator: Alok Joglekar
Institution: University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA)
Primary Subfield: Immunology
Recruitment Status: ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY Post-translational modifications (PTMs) are chemical modifications of amino acid side chains in proteins. PTMs are indispensable for biological processes and are intimately involved in numerous diseases. Post-translational modifications of proteins lead to alteration of their biochemical properties and are a crucial component of many cellular processes. Interestingly, PTMs also alter the immunogenicity of proteins by positively or negatively influencing recognition by antibodies or T cells. In particular, PTM epitopes have been shown to alter presentation of epitopes on MHC/HLA molecules and their recognition by T cells. PTMs such as deamidations, Hybrid Insulin Peptide (HIP) formation, citrullination, and phosphorylation have been known to create immunogenic epitopes across many diseases including Rheumatoid Arthritis, Type 1 Diabetes, and cancer. Despite their recognized importance, there is a lack of robust, scalable, and high-throughput approaches to interrogate PTMs as T cell antigens. We have previously developed a cell-based T cell antigen discovery approach called SABRs that can present >10,000 epitopes to T cells and identify their cognate epitopes. Using S…
Active NIH Awards
- 5R21AI190660-02: Identification of post-translationally modified antigens using genetic code expansion (2026)
- 5R01AT012826-04: Unraveling microprotein biology with an evolutionary-immunological framework (2026)
- 4DP2AI176138-02: Signaling via MHC: engineering immune cells with new capabilities (2025)
- 5R01AT012826-03: Unraveling microprotein biology with an evolutionary-immunological framework (2025)
- 1R21AI190660-01: Identification of post-translationally modified antigens using genetic code expansion (2025)
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