Dinler A. Antunes

Dinler A. Antunes is an Assistant Professor of Computational Biology at the Department of Biology and Biochemistry of the University of Houston, where he is also a member of the Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling (CNRCS). His research focuses on computational immunology and structural modeling of protein-ligand complexes that play key roles in cellular immunity.

Dr. Antunes received his educational training at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil, earning a Bachelor's degree in Biomedicine in 2008, a Master's degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2011, and a Doctorate in 2014. He later completed postdoctoral studies at Rice University's Computer Science Department with a fellowship from the Computational Cancer Biology Training Program (CCBTP), collaborating with MD Anderson Cancer Center.

His research interests center on developing computational methods for structural modeling of peptide-MHC complexes, with applications in personalized cancer immunotherapy and vaccine development. Dr. Antunes has pioneered several computational tools including DockTope, DINC, APE-Gen, and HLA-Arena, which enable researchers to model and analyze peptide-HLA complexes for immunotherapy applications. His work addresses the challenge of protein flexibility in molecular docking, particularly for large ligands like peptides binding to MHC receptors.

Analysis of Dr. Antunes' recent publications (2023-2025) reveals a strong focus on computational immunology, with particular emphasis on peptide-MHC structural modeling, T-cell cross-reactivity prediction, and applications in cancer immunotherapy. His work spans structural biology, machine learning applications in immunology, and translational research connecting computational predictions with clinical applications, particularly in acute myeloid leukemia and rheumatoid arthritis.

Dr. Antunes has received several scientific awards and recognitions:

• SCI Gold Oral Presentation Award at the 6th Annual SCI Summer Research Colloquium
• 2020 Immuno-Oncology Young Investigators' Forum (IOYIF) PhD Postdoc Awards
• Selected to represent the CCBTP program during the 30th Annual Keck Research Conference
• Fellowship from the Computational Cancer Biology Training Program

Dr. Antunes is actively recruiting PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to join his team at the University of Houston. His laboratory develops computational tools for structural immunology, with current projects including HLA-Arena (a customizable environment for peptide-HLA complex analysis), DINC-COVID (a webserver for ensemble docking with SARS-CoV-2 proteins), and CrossTope (a structural database for cross-reactivity assessment).