Rate My Professor Nikolaos Sgourakis

The Sgourakis Lab integrates structural biology methods such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, and cryo-electron microscopy with computational modeling, biophysical techniques, and functional assays to decode the atomic-level mechanisms governing peptide repertoire selection and display by Major Histocompatibility Complex molecules, chimeric antigen receptor target recognition, and T cell receptor activation at the immunological synapse. Key publications include the HLA-Shuttle system for enhancing antigen presentation in immunologically cold tumors (Science Advances, 2026), a multiallelic MHC I-binding system for targeting peptide antigens (Nature Biotechnology, 2024), the cryo-EM structure of an MHC-I/TAPBPR peptide-bound intermediate revealing antigen proofreading (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2025), and structural principles of peptide-centric chimeric antigen receptor recognition (Science Immunology, 2023). His research has garnered over 5,700 citations and contributes to international Cancer Grand Challenges teams developing T cell-based therapeutics for pediatric solid tumors.