Matthew E. Griffin
Biography
Matthew E. Griffin, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. Griffin received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech in 2017, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. As a graduate trainee, he developed chemical tools for glycoproteomics and studied sulfated glycans in vascular development, with findings published in two manuscripts in Nature Chemical Biology. He then completed postdoctoral training as a Hope Funds for Cancer Research Fellow and Melanoma Research Foundation Early Career Awardee at The Rockefeller University and Scripps Research. His work on Enterococcus peptidoglycan remodeling and its effects on checkpoint inhibitor cancer immunotherapy was published in Science in 2021.
Since joining UC Irvine in 2022, Griffin has established a research program using chemical glycoscience to understand the role of microbiota-derived metabolites in immune activation for cancer immunotherapy. His independent work has been recognized by multiple awards, including the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the V Abeloff Scholar Award, and the UC Early Career Faculty Excellence Award. As part of his outreach work, Griffin organizes of the SoCal Chemistry Undergraduate Research Symposium each summer.
Return to topEducation
- Ph.D. in Chemistry, Caltech, 2017
- B.S. in Biological Chemistry, Tulane University, 2010
- B.A. in French, Tulane University, 2010
- B.F.A. in Music Performance, Tulane University, 2010
Distinctions
- NIH Director's New Innovator Award, 2025
- Beckman Young Investigator Award, 2024
- Outstanding Reviewer, RSC Chem Biol, 2024, 2025
- NCI K22 Transition Career Development Award, 2023-2026
- V Abeloff Scholar Award (Top-ranked V Scholar Award by National Scientific Advisory Council), 2023
- V Scholar for Cancer Research Award, 2023-2026
- Hope Funds for Cancer Research Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2019-2022
- Melanoma Research Foundation Career Development Award, 2019-2021
- National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2011-2014
Areas of Expertise
- Chemical Glycobiology
- Host-Microbiota Interactions
- Polysaccharide Biochemistry
- Peptidoglycan Metabolism
- Probiotic Glycan Reprogramming
- Checkpoint Inhibitor Cancer Immunotherapy
- Host Immune Responses
Recent Publications
- Griffin M.E., Thompson J.W., Xiao Y., Sweredoski M.J., Jensen E.H., Aksenfeld R.B., Awad H., Kim T.D., Schacht A.L., Choudhry P., Koldobskaya Y., Lomenick B., Garbis S.D., Moradian A., Hsieh-Wilson L.C., “Functional analysis of O-GlcNAcylation by networking of OGT interactors and substrates” (opens in new tab), Nature Chemical Biology, 2026.
- Falco N, Griffin ME, “Discovering microbiota functions via chemical probe incorporation for targeted sequencing.” (opens in new tab), Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, vol. 84, pp. 102551, 2025.
- Griffin M., Hatzios S., Qiao Y., “Call for Papers: The Role of Microbiota in Infection and Immunity” (opens in new tab), ACS Infectious Diseases, vol. 10, pp. 3714, 2024.
- Jang KK, Heaney T, London M, Ding Y, Yeung F, Ercelen D, Chen YH, Axelrad J, Gurunathan S, Marijke Keestra-Gounder A, Griffin ME, Hang HC, Cadwell K, “Antimicrobial overproduction sustains intestinal inflammation by inhibiting Enterococcus colonization.” (opens in new tab), Cell Host and Microbe, vol. 31, no. 9, pp. 1450-1468.e8, 2023.
- Zhao X, Stein KR, Chen V, Griffin ME, Lairson LL, Hang HC, “Chemoproteomics reveals microbiota-derived aromatic monoamine agonists for GPRC5A.” (opens in new tab), Nature Chemical Biology, vol. 19, no. 10, pp. 1205-1214, 2023.
- Griffin ME, Tsukidate T, Hang HC, “N-Arylpyrazole NOD2 agonists promote immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.” (opens in new tab), ACS Chemical Biology, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 1368-1377, 2023.
- Griffin ME, Teijaro J, Hang HC, “Chemical immunology.”, Advanced chemical biology: Chemical dissection and reprogramming of biological systems, Wiley, 2023.
- Griffin ME, Klupt S, Espinosa J, Hang HC, “Peptidoglycan NlpC/P60 peptidases in bacterial physiology and host interactions.” (opens in new tab), Cell Chemical Biology, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 436-456, 2023.
- Griffin ME, Hang HC, “Microbial mechanisms to improve immune checkpoint blockade responsiveness.” (opens in new tab), Neoplasia United States, vol. 31, pp. 100818, 2022.
- Griffin ME, Hsieh-Wilson LC, “Tools for mammalian glycoscience research.” (opens in new tab), Cell, vol. 185, no. 15, pp. 2657-2677, 2022.
- Griffin ME, Espinosa J, Becker JL, Luo J-D, Carroll TS, Jha JK, Fanger GR, Hang HC, “Enterococcus peptidoglycan remodeling promotes checkpoint inhibitor cancer immunotherapy” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 373, no. 6558, pp. 1040-1046, 2021.
- Griffin ME, Hang HC, “Improving immunotherapy response through the use of designer bacteria” (opens in new tab), Cancer Cell, vol. 39, no. 12, pp. 1576-1577, 2021.
- Chen V, Griffin ME, Maguin P, Varble A, Hang HC, “RecT recombinase expression enables efficient gene editing in Enterococcus” (opens in new tab), Applied and Environmental Microbiology, vol. 87, no. 18, pp. e0084421, 2021.
- Cable J, Greenbaum B, Pe'er D, Bollard CM, Bruni S, Griffin ME, Allison JP, Wu CJ, Subudhi SK, Madris ER, Brentjens R, Sosman JA, Cemerski S, Zavitsanou AM, Proia T, Egeblad M, Nolan G, Goswami S, Spranger S, Mackall CL, “Frontiers in cancer immunology—a symposium report” (opens in new tab), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 1489, no. 1, pp. 30-47, 2021.
- Griffin ME, Sorum AW, Miller GM, Goddard III WA, Hsieh-Wilson LC, “Sulfated glycans engage the Ang/Tie pathway to regulate vascular development” (opens in new tab), Nature Chemical Biology, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 178-186, 2021.
- Griffin ME, Hespen CW, Wang Y-C, Hang HC, “Translation of peptidoglycan metabolites into immunotherapeutics” (opens in new tab), Clinical and Translational Immunology, vol. 8, no. 12, pp. e1095, 2019.
- Wang Y-C, Westcott NP, Griffin ME, Hang HC, “Peptidoglycan metabolite photoaffinity reporters reveal direct binding to intracellular pattern recognition receptors and Arf GTPases” (opens in new tab), ACS Chemical Biology, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 405-414, 2019.
- Thompson JW, Griffin ME, Hsieh-Wilson LC, “Methods for the detection, study, and dynamic profiling of O-GlcNAc glycosylation” (opens in new tab), Methods in Enzymology, vol. 598, pp. 101-135, 2018.
- Griffin ME, Jensen EH, Mason DE, Jenkins CL, Stone SE, Peters EC, Hsieh-Wilson LC, “Comprehensive mapping of O-GlcNAc modification sites using a chemically cleavable tag” (opens in new tab), Molecular Biosystems, vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 1756-1759, 2016.
- Griffin ME, Hsieh-Wilson LC, “Glycan engineering for cell and developmental biology” (opens in new tab), Cell Chemical Biology, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 108-121, 2016.
Most Cited Publications
- Pulsipher A, Griffin ME, Stone SE, Brown JM, Hsieh-Wilson LC, “Directed neuronal signaling through cell-surface glycan engineering” (opens in new tab), Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 136, no. 19, pp. 6794-6797, 2014.
- Pulsipher A, Griffin ME, Stone SE, Hsieh-Wilson LC, “Long-lived glycan engineering to direct stem cell fate” (opens in new tab), Angewandte Chemie International Edition, vol. 54, no. 5, pp. 1466-1470, 2015.
Contact Information
Website: https://mgriffinlab.com
Email: griffin@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-7640
Address: 2131 Natural Sciences II, Irvine, CA 92697-2025
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Last updated on 6/25/2026.