▶Interview

Prof. John Hwa Lee’s lab is mainly focused on developing Salmonella-based live-attenuated vaccines against veterinary and human pathogens, such as H1N1, N9N2, porcine circo virus, Salmonella Gallinarum, Campylobacter jejuni, SARS CoV2, SFTSV pathogens. 

They have made their own Salmonella delivery strains by lambda red gene deletion technology, and proved their low-pathogenicity, low-endotoxicity and high antigen delivery potential. And innovative plasmids were developed for antigen expression and harnessed along with our unique delivery systems.  

The lab has also discovered and is working on the molecular interplay of critical virulence genes with other key genes and phenotypes. Thereby, crucial virulence mechanisms of genes such as Lon protease, and KatG catalase were unveiled. 

In the recent past, they developed a tryptophan auxotrophic Salmonella mutant that specifically infects tumor environment without significant adverse effects in mice system. They have also utilized the auxotrophic Salmonella as an onco-therapeutic delivery system to deliver tumor suppressors and oncolytic toxins specifically to tumors.

▶Education

1995 / Ph. D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, Veterinary Medicine

1987 / B. S. Jeonbuk National University, Korea Veterinary Medicine

▶Researches

1. https://www.ibric.org/bric/hanbitsa/treatise.do?mode=author-treatise-list&srAuthorId=22373

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=John+Hwa+Lee&sort=date

3. Eukaryotic expression system complemented with expressivity of Semliki Forest Virus’s RdRp and invasiveness of engineered Salmonella demonstrate promising potential for bacteria mediated gene therapy (Biomaterials (vol.279, 121226)

4. Novel pro-and eukaryotic expression plasmid expressing omicron antigens delivered via Salmonella elicited MHC class I and II based protective immunity (Journal of Controlled Release (367:404-416)

5. Salmonella-Delivered COBRA-HA1 Antigen Derived from H1N1 Hemagglutinin Sequences Elicits Broad-Spectrum Protection Against Influenza A Subtypes (Engineering, S2095-8099(23)00298-9)