#TOLL2024

Feng Shao

Lecture Title: Barrier-cell Inflammasome Activation and Pyroptosis in Anti-bacterial Defense and Sepsis

Dr. Feng Shao is an investigator and deputy director at National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS), Beijing, China. He was a chemistry undergraduate of Peking University (1991-1996) and obtained his PhD with Dr. Jack E. Dixon from University of Michigan in 2003. Prior to returning to China in 2005 to assume an assistant investigator at NIBS, he was a Damon Runyon Postdoc Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Shao was promoted to become an associate investigator in 2009 and a full investigator in 2012 at NIBS. He has also been appointed as an Endowed Chair Professor of Tsinghua University since 2020.
Dr. Shao’s research lies at the interface between bacterial pathogen and host inflammation. He identified most of the known cytosolic receptors for bacterial molecules, including caspase-11/4/5 for LPS and ALPK1 for ADP-heptose in LPS biosynthesis. He also identified gasdermin-D (GSDMD) whose cleavage by caspase-1/4/5/11 determines pyroptosis, critical for septic shock and other inflammatory diseases. His research establishes the gasdermin family of pore-forming proteins, re-defining pyroptosis as gasdermin-mediated programmed necrosis.
Dr. Shao’s work has been recognized by numerous awards including the Future Science Prize, the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology, HHMI International Early Career Award and the Protein Society Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award. He is an elected member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, an associate member of EMBO, and a fellow of American Academy of Microbiology and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.