Recently, an application titled “Development of novel anti-tumor nanoantibody based on antibody constant CH2 domain” proposed by Prof. Rui Gong was officially approved by “The Young Scientist Subject” in the field of biological and pharmaceutical technology, National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program), which was initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2013. To cultivate young top-notch talents with global vision and competitiveness, “The Young Scientist Subject” provides funds to the young scientists with excellent innovation capacity who are below 35 years old. It is only forty-five applicants who were awarded after the strict selection from 1000 applicants, leading to less than 5% winning ratio. The goal of Prof. Gong's proposal is to develop nanoantibody targeting mesothelin as novel therapeutic candidate for treatment of tumor in clinic.

The Antibody Engineering Group led by Prof. Gong focuses on engineering of antibodies including development of nanoantibodies against viruses, tumors and other pathogens based on scaffold derived from antibody Fc CH2 domain for clinic use. This group tries to elucidate the basic questions in virology, oncology and other relatedfield (e.g., understand the mechanism of virus-host interactions), and solve several difficulties for improvement of the yield of protein-related drugs (e.g., increase the efficiency of correct folding of proteins) during the research and development of therapeutic antibodies.