Teng, Michele

Visiting Scientist, Department of Anatomical Pathology, Singapore General Hospital

Research interest:

Dr Michele Teng was head of the Cancer Immunoregulation and Immunotherapy laboratory at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia (2013-2023). She obtained her PhD in 2006 at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and University of Melbourne, Australia where she investigated strategies to improve the efficacy of CAR-T cells for cancer immunotherapy. Over her 20 year academic career, she has published over 100 peer-reviewed primary papers and reviews in high-impact journals such as Cancer Discovery, Nat Med, Nat Rev Clin Oncol. Her academic research investigated how tumour-induced immunosuppression impedes the effective treatment of established cancer. Specifically, in cancer initiation, growth and metastasis her group published on the role of Treg and other immunoregulatory T cell subsets, the adenosinergic pathway, and the IL-23-associated cytokine family. Her group also developed a pre-clinical mouse model to assess how different combination therapies impact on tumor immunity & immune related adverse events. More recently, her research provided the game changing pre-clinical proof that neoadjuvant immunotherapy was superior to adjuvant immunotherapy in the context of surgery for which Dr. Teng was awarded the Australian Academy of Science Jacques Miller Medal for Experimental Biomedicine in 2021. Dr. Teng was listed in Clarivate’s Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher for publications that ranked in the top 1% by citations in 2021 and 2022.  

Selected Publications (Primary Papers):

1. Addition of interleukin-2 overcomes resistance to neoadjuvant CTLA4 and PD1 blockade in ex vivo patient tumors. Kaptein P, Jacoberger-Foissac C, Dimitriadis P, Voabil P, de Bruijn M, Brokamp S, Reijers I, Versluis J, Nallan G, Triscott H, McDonald E, Tay J, Long GV, Blank CU, Thommen DS, Teng MWL. (Sci Transl Med. 2022 Apr 27;14(642):eabj9779)
   
   
2. Yan J, Allen S, McDonald E, Das I, Mak JYW, Liu L, Fairlie DP, Meehan SB, Chen Z, Corbett AJ, Varelias A, Smyth MJ, Teng MW. 'MAIT cells promote tumor initiation, growth and metastases via tumor MR1'. (Cancer Discovery. 2020 Jan;10(1):124-141)
   
   
3. Li XY, Moesta AK, Xiao C, Nakamura K, Casey M, Zhang H, Madore J, Lepletier A, Aguilera AR, Sundarrajan A, Jacoberger-Foissac C, Wong C, dela Cruz T, Welch M, Lerner AG, Spatola BN, Soros VB, Corbin J, Anderson AC, Effern M, Holzel M, Robson SC, Johnston RL, Waddell N, Smith C, Bald T, Geetha N, Beers C, MW Teng, Smyth MJ. 'Targeting CD39 in cancer reveals an extracellular ATP and inflammasome driven tumor immunity'. (Cancer Discovery. 2019 Dec;9(12):1754-1773).
   
   
4. Liu J, Blake SJ, Yong MC, Harjunpää H, Ngiow SF, Takeda K, Young A, O'Donnell JS, Allen S, Smyth MJ, Teng MW. Improved efficacy of neoadjuvant compared to adjuvant immunotherapy to eradicate metastatic disease. (Cancer Discov. 2016 Dec;6(12):1382-1399) Citation:257
   
   
5. Liu J, Blake SJ, Harjunpää H, Fairfax KA, Yong MC, Allen S, Kohrt HE, Takeda K, Smyth MJ, Teng MW. Assessing immune-related adverse events of efficacious combination immunotherapies in preclinical models of cancer. (Cancer Res. 2016 Sep 15;76(18):5288-301.) Citation:42
   
   
6. Blake SJ, Stannard K, Liu J, Allen S, Yong MC, Mittal D, Roman Aguilera A, Miles JJ, Lutzky VP, Ferrari de Andrade L, Martinet L, Colonna M, Takeda K, Kuhnel F, Gurlevik E, Bernhardt G, Teng MW, Smyth MJ. Suppression of metastases using a new lymphocyte checkpoint target for cancer immunotherapy. (Cancer Discov. 2016 Apr;6(4):446-59. Citation:124