Dr. Lawal received highly competitive Postdoctoral Award at Hillman Cancer Center. Congratulations to Bashir!

Dr. Parisa Lotfinejad will join our lab and the Department of Pathology next February 2023. She received her PhD in Immunology from Tabriz University of Medical Science and her primary research interests include studying the genetic mechanisms of tumor immune evasion in cancers and computational genomics. Welcome Dr. Lotfinejad!

Dr. Bashir Lawal joined our lab on Sep 1st. Dr. Bashir received his Ph.D. from Taipei Medical University (TMU), Taiwan. He is a molecular cancer biologist with both computational, pre-clinical, and clinical research interests, and will focus on studying the function of recurrent genetic rearrangements on cancer progression, immune evasion and immunotherapy resistance. Welcome Dr. Lawal!

PA Breast Cancer Coalition President Pat Halpin-Murphy recently awarded Wang lab a $50,000 research grant in Pittsburgh. Dr. Wang and his team plan to use the PBCC grant to study recurrent gene fusions and their role in the treatment of metastatic and endocrine-resistant breast cancer with goals to develop targeted therapies for patients.

Congratulations to Yuehua for winning the Merit Poster Award!

Low-cost multi-omics sequencing is expected to become clinical routine and transform precision oncology. Viable computational methods that can facilitate tailored intervention while tolerating sequencing biases are in high demand. In this study, we develop an integral genomic signature —iGenSig— approach to predict drug responses using multi-omics data from tumour samples, and validate this approach using genomic datasets from six clinical studies and clinical trials. iGenSig will provide a computational framework to empower tailored cancer therapy based on multi-omics data. Schematic showing the principle and key features of iGenSig modeling: i) the iGenSig approach intentionally retains and creates redundant genomic features, a concept like the use of redundant steel rods to…

Our lab recently received Breakthrough Award from the Congressionally Directed Breast Cancer Research Program of the Department of Defense. This award will support the study of a cryptic class of adjacent gene rearrangements in more aggressive and therapy-resistant breast cancer forms, and examine their function in cancer progression and immunotherapy resistance. Recurrent gene rearrangements that bring together two gene pieces comprise a class of viable genetic targets that have been matched with several latest breakthrough therapies in solid tumors as exemplified by the first FDA-approved tumor-agnostic drug against NTRK rearrangements. However, the pathological roles of this class of genetic aberrations in breast cancer progression remain poorly understood due to the…

Dr. Wang received award from PA Breast Cancer Coalition Grant Initiative to study the potential treatment strategy in metastatic and endocrine resistant luminal breast cancer associated with ESR1-CCDC170 fusions.

Our study about therapeutic role of nemo-like kinase in primary and acquired endocrine-resistant breast cancer was published in Clinical Cancer Research. Click here to see the text. Congratulations to Xian!

Dr. Chia-Chia Liu’s study on characterizing a novel neoplastic fusion transcript RAD51AP1-DYRK4 was published in Clinical Cancer Research. Click here to see the text. Congratulations to Chia-Chia!