Biography

Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from San Francisco State University

PhD in molecular biophysics from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Awards and accolades

NIH NCI Career Development Award

Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Fellowship

Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellowship

Milstein Young Investigator Award by the International Cytokine & Interferon Society for work on IFNs

Research interests

The Mendoza group’s research focuses on understanding basic principles of protein function relevant to human health and disease. Protein families of interest include the interferon (IFN) superfamily of cytokines which are an essential part of the innate immune system, providing protection against the spread of viral infections and cancerous growths. There are three families of IFNs, type I-III, each with distinct ligand-receptor systems. By applying a protein engineering approach, we are able to rapidly evolve IFNs and visualize the three-dimensional shapes of interferon cytokines bound to their cellular receptors. When the sequence and structural information of the newly evolved interferon cytokines is combined with comprehensive biophysical and functional studies, we provide new insights into cytokine signaling and create new opportunities for developing promising molecules for basic research and clinical use. Further work in the lab focuses on developing computational tools to accelerate protein engineering efforts and extend our understanding of the protein sequence-structure-function paradigm to other protein superfamilies.

Selected publications

Onabajo, O.O., Banday, A.R., Yan, W., Obajemu, A., Stanifer, M.L., Santer, D.M., Florez-Vargas, O., Piontkivska, H., Vargas, J., Kee, C., Tyrrell, D.L.J., Mendoza, J.L., Boulant, S., and Prokunina-Olsson, L.. “Interferons and viruses induce a novel primate-specific isoform dACE2 and not the SARS-CoV-2 receptor ACE2.” Nature Genetics (2020). [PubMed]

Mendoza, J.L., *Escalante, N.K., *Jude, K.M., *Sotolongo Bellon, J., Su, L., Horton, T.M., Tsutsumi, N., Berardinelli, S.J., Haltiwanger, R.S., Piehler, J., Engleman, E.G., and Garcia, K.C. “Structure of the IFNγ receptor complex guides design of biased agonists.” Nature (2019). * Denotes an equal contribution. [Nature]
Featured In: Faculty of 1000

Mendoza, J.L., Fischer, S., Gee, M.H., Brackenridge, S., Powrie, F.M., Birnbaum, M., McMichael, A.J., Garcia, K.C, and Gillespie, G.M.. “Interrogating the recognition landscape of a conserved HIV-specific TCR reveals distinct bacterial peptide cross-reactivity.” eLife (2020). [eLife]

Mendoza, J.L., *Escalante, N.K., *Jude, K.M., *Sotolongo Bellon, J., Su, L., Horton, T.M., Tsutsumi, N., Berardinelli, S.J., Haltiwanger, R.S., Piehler, J., Engleman, E.G., and Garcia, K.C. “Structure of the IFNγ receptor complex guides design of biased agonists.” Nature (2019). * Denotes an equal contribution. [Nature]
Featured In: Faculty of 1000

Gee, M.H., Han, A., Lofgren, S.M., Beausang, J.F., Mendoza, J.L., Birnbaum, M.E., Bethune, M.T., Fischer, S., Yang, X., Gomez-Eerland, R., Bingham, D.B., Sibener, L.V., Fernandes, R.A., Velasco, A., Baltimore, D., Schumacher, T.N., Khatri, P., Quake, S.R., Davis, M.M., and Garcia, K.C. “Antigen identification for orphan T cell receptors expressed on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes.” Cell 172 (2018), 549-563. [PubMed]

*Moraga, I.M., *Spangler, J.B., *Mendoza, J.L., J.B., Gakovic, M., Wehrman, T.S., Krutzik, P., Garcia, K.C. “Synthethic cytokines dimerizing novel cytokine receptor pairs elicit new signaling programs and immune activities.” eLife 6 (2017), e22882. * Denotes an equal contribution. [PubMed]

Mendoza, J.L., Schneider, W., Hans-Heinrich, H., Vercauteren, K., Jude, K.M., Xiong, A., Moraga, I., Horton, T., Glenn, J.S., de Jong, Y., Rice, C.M., Garcia, K.C. “The IFN-λ-IFN-λR1-IL-10Rβ Complex Reveals Structural Features Underlying Type III IFN Functional Plasticity.” Immunity 46 (2017), 379-392. [PubMed] 
Featured on the Cover 

Birnbaum, M.E., Mendoza, J.L., Sethi, D.K., Dong, S., Glanville, J., Dobbins, J., Ozkan, E., Davis, M.M., Wucherpfennig, K.W., and Garcia, K.C. “Deconstructing the peptide-MHC specificity of T cell recognition.” Cell 157 (2014), 1073–1087. [PubMed]

Mendoza, J.L., Schmidt, A., Li, Q., Caspa, E., Barrett, T., Brautigam, C.A., Bridges, R.J., Feranchak, A.P., and Thomas, P.J. “Requirements for Efficient Correction of ΔF508 CFTR Revealed by Analyses of Evolved Sequences.” Cell 148 (2012), 164-174. [PubMed]