Research Areas

I. Warm up cold tumors

Prostate cancer is the “cold” cancer that poory responds to immunotherapy and the tumor microenvironment is immunosuppressive.

We aim to look for the therapeutic strategies that turn the immunosuppressive microenvironment into the immunosupportive microenvironment, leading to a good response to immunotherapy.

II. Block brain metastasis

The majority of brain metastases occur in lung cancer, breast cancer, melanoma and colorectal cancer. We’re interested in understand the molecular mechanisms of brain metastases relative to primary tumour, and tumor microenviromental regulation mechanisms involved in metabolism and neuroinflammation.

III. Drug undrugable targets

Using multiple 2D/3D cancer cell culture system and animal models of various cancer types, We collaborate with Lei lab to optimize PROTAC system and apply it on undruggable targets of refractory cancers.

Highlights

Dr. Wu is a chair professor and dean of the School of Life Sciences at Peking University, and a senior investigator of the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences. Before returning to China, Dr. Hong Wu was David Geffen Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Dr. Wu received her medical training from Beijing Medical College, China, and her PhD in Biological Chemistry from Harvard Medical School. After postdoctoral training as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MIT, she joined UCLA as a faculty member.

A major research focus of Dr. Wu’s laboratory is to study the molecular mechanism of PTEN tumor suppressor controlled tumorigenesis. By generating tissue-specific PTEN deficient animal models, Dr. Wu’s laboratory elucidated the important role of PTEN in regulating stem cell self-renewal, proliferation, and survival, as well as its roles in controlling the PI3K pathway. These models have been used for preclinical studies of new therapeutic agents and for identifying biomarkers for human prostate cancers.

Cross-talks between the PTEN/PI3K pathways and other signaling pathways in cancer development & treatment resistance

Various genetically engineered models generated by the Wu lab and shared with the scientific communities have offered unique tools for exploring the molecular mechanisms underlying human cancers, metabolic diseases, and the development of new therapies (Cancer Cell 2003 4:209-221; PNAS 2004 101: 2082-2087; Mol. Cell Biol. 2005 25:2498-510; 2006 26:2772-81; Cancer Res. 2006 66: 6492-6496; Cancer Res. 2007 67: 6083-91).  Results derived from their studies have provided novel mechanisms by which the loss of PTEN can control the functions of NKX3.1 and p53 tumor suppressors (Cancer Cell 2003 3:117-129; Cancer Cell 2006 9: 367-78). Professor Wu’s recent works are cantered on the cross-talk between the PTEN controlled PI3K pathway and other signal pathways in cancer progression and therapeutic resistance (PNAS 2009 106: 19479-84; Cancer Res. 2010 70:7114-24; Cancer Cell 2011 19, 792-804; Cancer Res 2012 72:1878-89; Cancer Res 2015 75:2749-59; Oncogene 2016 35: 3781-95; Ann oncol 2017). 

Honors

• 2016      EMBO Member

• 2011      Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

• 2009      David Geffen Endowed Chair for Medical Research

• 2008      Adelson Foundation Award

• 2008      Prostate Cancer Foundation Award

• 2006      Brain Tumor Society Program Award

• 2006      Waxman Foundation Program Award

• 2003      James S. McDonnell Foundation Award

• 2002      The Brain Tumor Society Award

• 2000      1999 Cheryl Whitlock Memorial Prize

• 1997      Howard Hughes Assistant Investigator Award

• 1997      The V Foundation Scholar Award

• 1997      Pew Scholar Award

• 1996      Stop Cancer-Next Generation Award

Related News

 https://www.pcf.org/bio/dr-hong-wu/

Selected Publications

1. Wu,H., Klingmüller, U., Besmer, P. and Lodish, H. (1995). Interaction of the erythropoietin and stem cell factor receptors. Nature 377, 242-246. PMID:7545788

2. Wu, H., Liu, X., Jaenisch, R. and Lodish, H. (1995). Generation of committed erythroid BFU-E and CFU-E progenitors does not require erythropoietin or the erythropoietin receptor. Cell 83, 59-67. PMID:7553874

3. Groszer, M., Erickson, R., Scripture-Adams, D., Lesche, R., Trumpp, A., Zack, J., Kornblum, H., Liu, X., and Wu, H. (2001) Negative Regulation of Neural Stem/Progenitor Cell Proliferation by the Pten Tumor Suppressor Gene In Vivo. Science 294: 2186-2189. PMID:11691952

4. Wang, S., Gao, J., Lei, Q-Y., Rozengurt, N., Pritchard, C., Jiao, J., Thomas, G., Li, G., Roy-Burman, P., Nelson, P., Liu, X., and Wu, H. (2003) Prostate-specific deletion of the murine Pten tumor suppressor gene leads to metastatic prostate cancer. Cancer Cell 4:209-221.  PMID: 14522255

5. Guo, W., Lasky, J, Chang, C., Mosessian, S., Lewis, X., Xiao, Y., Yeh, J., Chen, J., Iruela-Arispe, L., Varella-Garcia, M. and Wu, H. (2008) Multi-genetic events collaboratively to Pten-null leukaemia stem-cell formation. Nature 453: 529-533. PMCID: PMC2840044