Team

Heewook Lee

Role: Principal Investigators

Bio: Heewook Lee is an assistant professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence and the Biodesign Institute’s Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society. His research interest lies broadly in computational biology, focusing on genetic variation. His current research develops computational techniques to study largely varying types of immunological components in organisms. Prior to joining ASU, he was a Lane Fellow in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.

Pengfei Zhang

Role: PHD Student

Bio: I am a 5th year Computer Science Ph.D. candidate at School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State Unviersity advisored by Dr. Heewook Lee. My research interests lie at the fascinating crossroads of computational biology and large language models, with a particular emphasis on the field of cost-effective T cell immunotherapy. My work seeks to shed light on two key areas: first, developing computational strategies for accurate prediction of the binding affinity between T cell receptors (TCRs) and epitope sequences presented on abnormal cells; second, designing/generating TCR sequences tailored for personalized immunotherapy. This field holds the potential to substantially expedite and reduce the cost of wet-lab experiments, paving the way for solutions to a wide array of diseases.