Xinyi Gao
DPhil Student
Xinyi Gao is a DPhil student under the supervision of Dr Shijie Cai and Dr Malcom Sim, funded by the China Scholarship Council – University of Oxford Scholarship. Her research investigates how metabolic reprogramming in tumours drive their resistance against natural killer (NK) cell immunosurveillance in breast cancer by incorporating multi-omics analysis.
NK cells are a key component of the innate immune system, and NK cell-based immunotherapies have shown strong promise in cancer treatment. However, their clinical effectiveness is often limited by immunosuppressive mechanisms within the tumour microenvironment. Preliminary evidence suggests that certain tumour-derived metabolites may impair NK cell function and facilitate tumour immune evasion. Xinyi’s project aims to uncover the molecular and metabolic pathways underlying this process, with the ultimate goal of validating new therapeutic targets to improve the efficacy of NK cell-based immunotherapy.
Before starting her DPhil, Xinyi completed a BSc in Biological Sciences at Imperial College London, where her final year project focused on studying how Plasmodium infection affects haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in the bone marrow. She went on to pursue an MPhil in Biological Sciences (Infection Biology and Molecular Immunology) at the University of Cambridge, investigating immune responses to lytic Human Cytomegalovirus infection.