如果以為用英文進行簡報時，只要前幾天稍做準備一下就上台，要不是你的英文特別好，不然是絕對講得特別爛，像我個人就很討厭參加自己實驗室的meeting，去年度只去過兩次，也就是我報告的那兩次，因為，我覺得很多人都沒把簡報當一回事，只是敷衍一下老闆用的，英文爛就算了，稿子也沒背熟，當然就不要說整個流程真的是讓沒有從事相關研究的人完全聽不懂重點。
像我個人會提早一個月開始設計投影片，並為其寫好講稿，然後還要再花一到兩個星期的時間去背稿跟調整語氣，因為我的口音也不是很道地的美國腔，但至少我會努力得很像一回事，以下就是2014年2月12日的進度報告英文講稿，裡面也許很多文法錯誤，這也不重要了，重要的是我可能當年在學校成績比不上人，但離開學校後，很多人做不好的事，我都會做得很好，這樣就贏了。
In the first slide, I would like to give you a brief introduction about this project. Basically, I am trying to create many glycolipid antigens that look like this compound, α-galactosylceramide, which is also known as α-GalCer or KRN7000, and here in this building, we’re calling it C1.
When this compound is injected into mice, it binds to CD1d protein as a binery complex, which is presented on the cell surface of antigen presenting cells, such as macrophages or dendritic cells.
Unlike any other conventional T cells, NKT cells don't interact with peptide antigens, it will specifically recognize this binery complex. After that, both NKT and APC will release many Th1 and Th2 cytokines, such as IFN-γ and IL-4 to further promote Th1 or Th2 responses.
And we know that Th2 cytokines will suppress Th1 responses. So in our case, if we wish to induce Th1-biased responses for anticancer treatments, we certainly hope that more IFN-γ could be released during the process.
Here we can see that, when NKT cells make contact with α-GalCer, IL-4 is released within 2 hours, followed by the production of large amount of IFN-γ. And based on what we have learned about so far, α-GalCer may sometimes induce Th2 responses instead of Th1 in some cases, which means it is not really good enough for inducing Th1-biased responses, that’s why we’re working so hard on the improvement of its reactivities.
After years of research, we have created these phenyl-containing glycolipids that have great influence on the activation of NKT cells. The production of IFN-γ increases a lot, you can see the difference between C1 and C34 is huge, and the secretion of IL-4 does not even increase a bit. At the same time, we have found something very interesting, C34 is able to induce more chemokine MCP-1 than the other two antigens.
And if we take a closer look into the ternary complex, the galactose head group is exposed outside, so NKT cells can make contact with glycolipid. We still don’t know why NKT cells would respond differently to lipid chains, since both chains are buried inside CD1d protein. But there is one thing we do know for sure, for a large group like this one, we may found a perfect structure that fits binding pockets. So now most of the new antigens are created based on the structure of C34.
So, this time, we wanna keep using the same lipid chains and do some minor modifications to the galactose head group and see what can we really get. And the crystal structure of the binery and turnery complex has been published, it basically tells us that most of the functional groups are crucial for binding, except 4’-OH and 6’-OH. So we will just focus on these two positions and do nothing to the rest.
這大概就是一半的簡報內容，後面牽涉到未發表的部份，而且由於是化學流程之故，其實講起來很枯燥，所以我的重點多半是將生化背景的流程講得順暢即可，後面的化學流程簡單帶過，而且我也不喜歡講太多廢話，要講得短與順，並以圖片加深聽眾印象，通常不用十分鐘時間就會講完。
