Immunowake was founded in 2019 by Dr. Xiaoyun Wu with the mission of advancing next-generation cytokine therapeutics. With research facilities in both China and the United States, our team is focused on building a diverse and innovative pipeline of immunocytokines designed to precisely modulate the immune system. By engineering cytokines with improved specificity, efficacy, and safety, we aim to deliver new treatment options for patients who have not benefited from existing immunotherapies and to expand the reach of immune-based medicine.
Dr. Wu brings more than 16 years of academic research experience, including a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and a tenure-track Associate Professorship in the UAB School of Medicine. He has authored over 25 publications in top-tier journals such as Nature, Nature Medicine, EMBO, and PNAS. His industry background spans more than a decade, including co-founder of Tranzyme Pharma Inc., a gene therapy company leveraging novel lentiviral technology that later went public on NASDAQ in 2011. Dr. Wu also developed the TZM-bl HIV-1 neutralizing antibody assay—now an FDA-recognized gold-standard method—which helped secure a $45 million investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Since 2015, he has concentrated on oncology drug discovery with a focus on therapeutic multi-specific antibodies.
