Leonardo Ferreira Receives Future of Science Fund Scholarship from Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology

UCSF molecular immunologist Leonardo M.R. Ferreira, Ph.D.,@enhancerleo, a postdoctoral scholar in the laboratories of Dr. Qizhi Tang and Dr. Jeffrey Bluestone at UCSF, received a Future of Science Fund Scholarship from the Keystone Symposia on Molecular Biology to attend one of the organization's meetings in Breckenridge, Colorado, on “Uncovering Mechanisms of Immune-Based Therapy in Cancer and Autoimmunity”. Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology has a 47-year history of convening open, peer-reviewed conferences that connect the scientific community and accelerate life science discovery.

Dr. Ferreira was also selected to present his work at the program session “Finding a Cure for Cancer”. His presentation, “Chimeric Antigen Receptors for Dissecting Treg Biology and Next-gen Treg Therapy”, reported on his ongoing work on a new approach to engineering custom-made antigen-specific regulatory T cells as “living drugs” for autoimmune disorders and organ transplant rejection.

Dr. Ferreira's faculty mentors are Qizhi Tang, Ph.D., Professor and Director of the Transplantation Research Laboratory and Tang Lab in the UCSF Department of Surgery, and Jeffrey A. Bluestone, Ph.D., A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor of Metabolism and Endocrinology and Director of the Hormone Research Institute in the Diabetes Center and Sean N. Parker Autoimmune Research Laboratory.