I am an Assistant Professor of Computational Biology at the Department of Biology and Biochemistry of the University of Houston. I am a member of the Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling (CNRCS), located at the Science & Engineering Research Center Bldg 545 (SERC, Suite 3007). I work with structural modeling and analysis of protein-ligand complexes that play key roles in cellular immunity. My research will facilitate the development of safer and better personalized immunotherapy treatments, enabling structure-based selection of peptides that can be targeted by the immune system (e.g., tumor neoantigens), and computational prediction of dangerous off-target toxicities.
I attained my bachelor’s degree (BS) in Biomedicine in 2008, at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, Brazil), and received my master’s degree (MS) in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the same university in 2011. During my doctorate degree (DSc), concluded in 2014, I applied bioinformatics tools to identify molecular features responsible for complex immunological phenomena, such as heterologous immunity. My research enabled in silico predictions of T cell cross-reactivity among viral epitopes, which were later confirmed by in vitro experiments. Later, I developed my postdoctoral studies at the Computer Science Department of Rice University (Houston, TX), with a fellowship from the Computational Cancer Biology Training Program (CCBTP). During this time I worked in collaboration with a team from MD Anderson Cancer Center on the development of structure-based methods that can be used to improve peptide-target selection in personalized cancer immunotherapy. One of the outcomes of this project was the modeling environment HLA-Arena. I am also a permanent contributor of the Brazilian Society of Immunology Blog (SBlogI).
More details can be found in my curriculum vitae.
News
Follow me on Bluesky (@dinler.bsky,social) for the latest updates.
- Our review paper on computational and AI tools for TCR analysis in cancer immunotherapy is undergoing the second round of reviews in a prestigious Journal. Stay tuned!
- Our work on RMSX and Flipbook, packages for user-friendly and intuitive high-resolution mapping of molecular motions over time, was accepted for publication in the Scientific Reports Journal (Nature Publishing Group). RMSX combines features from both RMSD and RMSF to analyze time-resolved residue-level motions, and Flippbook supports visualization of snapshoots of the trajectory highlighting these movements, using either VMD or UCSF ChimeraX. A preprint of the manuscript can be found here.
- AI-based structural modeling of TCR and their targets: Advances and Limitations. Invited talk at the “Leveraging the Power of Artificial Intelligence to Foster Progress in Immuno-oncology: Opportunities and Challenges”, a Pre-Conference event of the 40th Anniversary SITC symposium. National Harbor, MD, US. November 6, 2025.
- Computational biology applied to drug discovery and cancer immunotherapy. Invited talk at Universidade do Vale do Taquari (Univates), as part of the course on Advanced Topics in Medicine and Health Science. Lajeado, RS, Brazil (via Zoom). August 21, 2025.
- HLA-Arena: Integrating structural bioinformatics on the design of personalized immunotherapies. Invited talk at the Postgraduate Program in Genetics and Molecular Biology of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (PPGBM/UFRG). Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. August 14, 2025.
- Artificial intelligence powered biomedical research. Invited talk at the The Advanced Technology and Medical Research Exploration, a Biomedical Research Incubator program by the Center for Nuclear Receptors of the University of Houston, and the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center of the Baylor College of Medicine. Houston, TX, US. July 15, 2025.
- HLA-Arena: Enabling structure-guided pipelines for personalized cancer immunotherapy design. Invited talk at the NCI intramural webinar series, for the Computational Genomics and Bioinformatics Branch (CGBB) of the NCI’s Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT). Bethesda, MD, US (via Webex; recording). April 30, 2025. Full recording available here.
For more, check the News Archive.
Address
3517 Cullen Blvd. Science & Engineering Research Center (SERC) Bldg 545, Suite 3007. Houston, TX 77204-5056