Associate Professor

Institute of Bioengineering, School of Engineering

Vice Dean for Innovation

School of Life Sciences

École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Group Website: https://www.epfl.ch/labs/tang-lab/

Li Tang is an Associate Professor at EPFL's Institute of Bioengineering and Materials Science, where he also serves as Vice Dean for Innovation at the School of Life Sciences and is Co‑Founder & Chairman of Leman Biotech. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University, China, in 2007, and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, in 2012, under the supervision of Prof. Jianjun Cheng. He was a CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Darrell Irvine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology during 2013-2016. He joined the faculty of Institute of Bioengineering, and Institute of Materials Science & Engineering, at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in 2016, and promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2022. His research focuses on multidimensional immunoengineering to advance cancer immunotherapies. Prof. Tang has received many prestigious awards, including the ERC Consolidator Grant (2025) and Starting Grant (2018), Biomaterials Award for Young Investigators (2024), Biomaterials Science Lectureship  (2025), Leenaards Prize for Translational Medical Research (2025), Friedrich Miescher Award (2025), and Lem Prize (2025), and was named to Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2025), and MIT Technology Review's "Top 35 Innovators Under 35" in China (2020).

Representative Publications

[1] Feng, B#; Bai, Z.#; Zhou, X.; Zhao, Y.; Xie, Y.-Q.; Huang, X.; Liu, Y.; Enbar, T.; Li, R.; Wang, Y.; Gao, M.; Bonati, L.; Peng, M.-W.; Li, W.; Tao, B.; Charmo, M.; Held, W.; Melenhorst, J.J.; Fan, R.*; Guo, Y.*; Tang, L.*. A type 2 cytokine Fc–IL-4 revitalizes exhausted CD8+ T cells against cancer. Nature 2024a, 634, 712–720.

[2] Bai, Z.#; Feng, B#; McClory, S.E.; de Oliveira, B.C.; Diorio, C.; Tao, B.; Yang, L.; Zhao, Z.; Peng, L.; Sferruzza, G.; Zhou, L.; Kerr, J.; Baysoy, A.; Su, G.; Zhou, X.; Camara, P.G.; Chen, S.; Tang, L.*; June, C.H.*; Melenhorst J.J.*; Grupp, S.A.*; Fan, R.*. Single-cell CAR T atlas reveals type2 function in 8-year leukemia remission. Nature 2024b, 634, 702–711.

[3] Zhao, Y.#; Chen, J.#; Andreatta, M.; Feng, B.; Xie, Y.-Q.; Wenes, M.; Wang, Y.; Gao, M.; Hu, X.; Romero, P.; Carmona, S.; Sun, J.*; Guo, Y.*; Tang, L.* "IL-10-expressing CAR-T cells resist dysfunction and mediate durable clearance of solid tumors and metastases", Nat. Biotech. 2024, 634, 702-711.

[4] Guo, Y.#; Xie, Y.-Q.#; Gao, M.; Zhao, Y.; Franco, F.; Wenes, M.; Siddiqui, I.; Bevilacqua, A.; Wang, H.; Yang, H.; Feng, B.; Xie, X.; Sabatel, C.M.; Tschumi, B.; Chaiboonchoe, A.; Wang, Y.; Li, W.; Xiao, W.; Held, W.; Romero, P.; Ho, P.-C.*; Tang, L.* "Metabolic Reprogramming of Terminally Exhausted CD8+ T cells by IL-10 Enhances Anti-Tumor Immunity", Nat. Immunol. 2021, 22, 746–756.

[5] Lei, K.; Kurum, A.; Kaynak, M.; Bonati, L.; Han, Y.; Cencen, V.; Gao, M.; Xie, Y.-Q.; Guo, Y.; Hannebelle, M.T.M.; Wu, Y.; Zhou, G; Guo, M.; Fantner, G.E.; Sakar, M.S.; Tang, L.* "Cancer-Cell Stiffening via Cholesterol Depletion Enhances Adoptive T-cell Therapy", Nat. Biomed. Eng. 2021, 5, 1411-1425.