Professor
I am a Professor in Coriell Institute for Medical Research in Camden, New Jersey. I received my PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Beijing Cancer Institute, Beijing University, China where my graduate work focus on the cloning and elucidating the functional role of the VEGF receptor KDR on tumor angiogenesis and tumor metastases in gastric cancer. After obtaining my Ph.D at 1999, I immediately pursue my postdoctoral fellowship in UT, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and focus on cancer biology in gastrointestinal cancers especially specifically in the esophagus, the area of the body where the esophagus joins the stomach, also known as the gastroesophageal (or GE) junction and gastric cancer. I have been gained extensive experience in gastrointestinal cancer biology, gene transcription and expression regulation, and molecular approaches to investigate the molecular mechanisms of GE junction and gastric cancer initiation, progression, and metastasis.
As an independent investigator, my laboratory and the team are working to investigate the molecular mechanisms and novel targets focusing on how deregulation of Hippo/YAP signaling in mediating CSCs traits, therapy resistance and metastases in gastroesophageal cancers. One of the major projects in the laboratory is to decipher how Hippo/YAP/TAZ or other stem cell factors SOXs mediated immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments and the interaction among tumor cell, macrophage, CAFs and T cells for novel therapeutic strategies. The long-term goal is to develop YAP1/TAZ/TEAD inhibitors for targeted therapy of gastrointestinal cancers and discover novel target and immunotherapy in advanced GI tumors by fully exploring patients derived tissues/cells.
Before Coriell, I was a Professor in the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the University of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas where I focused on GI cancer research for more than 20 years.
