Dr. Cheng completed his Ph.D. and postdoctoral training with Dr. Evan Newell at Singapore Immunology Network of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). There, he spearheaded multiple research programs using highly multiplexed combinatorial peptide-MHC tetramer strategy and mass cytometry to comprehensively probed peripheral and intrahepatic virus-specific T cells in patients with chronic HBV infection or hepatocellular carcinoma. His works contributed to the fundamental understanding of T cell exhaustion and memory responses during the progression of human chronic HBV infection, and identified novel HBV-specific memory T cells and HBV-reactive T cell receptors (TCR) linked to disease control. He moved to Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School as a staff scientist in 2020, where he extended his research interest to study the functional roles of virus-specific T cells in HPV-associated cancers and their responses in immunotherapy.

In 2023, Dr. Cheng returned to Taiwan, to establish his independent research group as an Assistant Faculty Member at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica. The main focus of Cheng Laboratory is to explore the functional relationship of tissue-resident memory T cells and the long-term immune protection in the context of human virus infection, vaccination, and virus-associated cancer.

Human memory T cells are critical in controlling the immune protection upon vaccination, or during the progression of viral infection and virus-associated cancer. The Cheng Laboratory focuses on combining the usage of highly multiplexed combinatorial peptide-MHC tetramer staining, mass cytometry, single-cell multi-omics, T cell receptor sequencing, high-dimensional analysis, and spatial imaging, to dissect human virus-specific T cell responses residing in the diseased tissues in great detail. We are particularly interested in the immune responses of virus-specific T cells in SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and infection, chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and HBV-associated liver diseases,  and human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers.