Shihao chen
Co-Founder QLSF Biotherapeutics
Dr. Shihao Chen is the CEO and Founder of QLSF Biotherapeutics, an immuno-oncology company based in South San Francisco focused on developing next-generation antibody therapies. With over 20 years of experience in cancer research, he has dedicated his career to harnessing the immune system to fight tumors through innovative approaches including T-cell engagers and multispecific antibodies. Under his leadership, multiple programs have advanced into clinical trials, with additional candidates progressing toward the clinic.
Dr. Chen earned his bachelor’s degree from Shanghai Medical University and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Toronto. He has held senior leadership and scientific roles at PDL BioPharma, AbbVie, and Pfizer, contributing to target validation, antibody discovery, and immuno-oncology strategy.
Seminars
- Addressing the lack of commercialized GLP-standardized assays for pHLA and human-specific targets, and the resulting necessity for companies to develop bespoke, creative in-house solutions
- Evaluating current industry best practices by analyzing the non-clinical pathways of pioneers to establish a common technical foundation for the field
- Proposing collaborative strategies to share methodologies and validation data for in vitro assays to help move the industry toward a unified standard that can be more effectively presented to regulatory bodies
- PSMA is highly expressed in prostate cancer, and single‑cell RNA sequencing of metastatic tumor‑infiltrating lymphocytes identifies CD2 as a broadly expressed co‑stimulatory receptor, particularly on CD8⁺ T cells
- QL535, a trispecific PSMA × CD3 × CD2 molecule (2+1+1 TECOS format), delivers CD3 activation and CD2 co‑stimulation to enhance cytotoxicity while limiting cytokine release compared with benchmark T‑cell engagers
- QL535 demonstrates superior PSMA‑dependent killing in vitro, sustained activity under repeated stimulation, dose‑responsive tumor regression in PSMA⁺ PDX PDX models, and a favorable GLP toxicology profile in non‑human primates, supporting its clinical development for PSMA‑positive prostate cancer
