Adam obtained his Ph.D. in the Department of Pathology at Case Western Reserve University (2004) in Cleveland, Ohio, where he studied strategies employed by Mycobacterium tuberculosis to evade detection of the CD4 T cell response.  From there Adam joined the UCL Institute of Hepatology (2004-2006) at University College London as a research fellow and shifted interests to viral immunology, which has been the focus of his research since.  Adam moved to Singapore in 2006, joining A*Star as a research fellow, and continued his work on the T cell response to viral infection and how this can be exploited for clinical therapy.  He is now assistant principal investigator at the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences.

The lab studies the potential of genetically modified T cells to prevent or treat viral infection and virus-related cancers such as HBV-related liver cancer. T cells recognize infected cells through a highly specific T cell receptor (TCR), which leads to killing of infected cells.  We developed a method to isolate virus-specific T cells from patients that resolved different viral infections (hepatitis B virus & Influenza), clone the TCR DNA and using a gene therapy approach we have introduced the TCR into the T cells of an individual who has never encountered the virus.