About Cancer Biology

The Cancer Biology Department is the home of a dynamic, collaborative and highly interactive faculty with cutting-edge research programs that span a wide range of cancer-related topics.

Every new discovery and success in our laboratories—big and small—is putting our dreams of eradicating (or controlling) cancer closer than ever to reality. We hope you will join us in our fight against cancer through basic and translational research at this most opportune and exciting time.

We invite you to learn more about:

• Our History
• Chair's Corner
• Faculty
• Graduate Program
• Seminars & Symposia

Recent Publications

The following publications have been recently published by Cancer Biology faculty:

• Muto, Tomoya; Walker, Callum S; Choi, Kwangmin; Hueneman, Kathleen; Smith, Molly A; Gul, Zartash; Garcia-Manero, Guillermo; Ma, Averil; Zheng, Yi; Starczynowski, Daniel T 2020. Adaptive response to inflammation contributes to sustained myelopoiesis and confers a competitive advantage in myelodysplastic syndrome HSCs. Nature immunology, 21 5, 535-545
• Wang, Chuchu; Tu, Jia; Zhang, Shengnan; Cai, Bin; Liu, Zhenying; Hou, Shouqiao; Zhong, Qinglu; Hu, Xiao; Liu, Wenbin; Li, Guohui; Liu, Zhijun; He, Lin; Diao, Jiajie; Zhu, Zheng-Jiang; Li, Dan; Liu, Cong 2020. Different regions of synaptic vesicle membrane regulate VAMP2 conformation for the SNARE assembly. Nature communications, 11 1, 1531
• Papaioannou, D; Petri, A; Dovey, OM; Terreri, S; Wang, E; Collins, FA; Woodward, Lauren A; Walker, AE; Nicolet, D; Pepe, F; Kumchala, P; Bill, M; Walker, CJ; Karunasiri, M; Mrózek, K; Gardner, ML; Camilotto, V; Zitzer, N; Cooper, JL; Cai, X; Rong-Mullins, X; Kohlschmidt, J; Archer, KJ; Freitas, MA; Zheng, Y; Lee, RJ; Aifantis, I; Vassiliou, G; Singh, G; Kauppinen, S; Bloomfield, CD; Dorrance, AM; Garzon, R. 2019. The long non-coding RNA HOXB-AS3 regulates ribosomal RNA transcription in NPM1-mutated acute myeloid leukemia. Nature Communications, 10 1, 5351
• Wang, Chenran; Haas, Michael A., Yang, Fuchun; Yeo, Syn; Okamoto, Takako; Chen, Song; Wen, Jian; Sarma, Pranjal; Plas, David R.; Guan, Jun-Lin 11-2019. Autophagic lipid metabolism sustains mTORC1 activity in TSC-deficient neural stem cells. Nature Metabolism, 1, 1127–1140
• Goyal, Lipika; Shi, Lei; Liu, Leah Y; Fece de la Cruz, Ferran; Lennerz, Jochen K; Raghavan, Srivatsan; Leschiner, Ignaty; Elagina, Liudmila; Siravegna, Giulia; Ng, Raymond W S; Vu, Phuong; Patra, Krushna C; Saha, Supriya K; Uppot, Raul N; Arellano, Ron; Reyes, Stephanie; Sagara, Takeshi; Otsuki, Sachie; Nadres, Brandon; Shahzade, Heather A; Dey-Guha, Ipsita; Fetter, Isobel J; Baiev, Islam; Van Seventer, Emily E; Murphy, Janet E; Ferrone, Cristina R; Tanabe, Kenneth K; Deshpande, Vikram; Harding, James J; Yaeger, Rona; Kelley, Robin K; Bardelli, Alberto; Iafrate, A John; Hahn, William C; Benes, Cyril H; Ting, David T; Hirai, Hiroshi; Getz, Gad; Juric, Dejan; Zhu, Andrew X; Corcoran, Ryan B; Bardeesy, Nabeel 2019. TAS-120 Overcomes Resistance to ATP-Competitive FGFR Inhibitors in Patients with FGFR2 Fusion-Positive Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma. Cancer Discovery, 9 8, 1064-1079

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Latest News/Events

Congratulations, Dr. Xiaoting Zhang!

4/30/20: Xiaoting Zhang, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Cancer Biology, has been named The Thomas F. Boat, MD, Endowed Chair in the College of Medicine.

Announcing Special Coronavirus (COVID-19) Research Pilot Grant Recipients!

Two cancer biology faculty received awards for this special funding opportunity financially supported by the UC Office of Research and the College of Medicine Office of Research.

    Jiajie Diao, PhD, Department of Cancer Biology. “Single Molecule Study of Coronavirus Helicase”.

    David Plas, PhD, Department of Cancer Biology and William Miller, PhD, Department of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology (Co-PIs). “Interfering with SARS-CoV-2 Envelope-dependent Viral Entry”.

Congratulations to Susan Waltz, PhD!

3/24/20: Dr. Waltz, Cancer Biology professor, has been awarded an NIH R01 from the National Cancer Institute. The five year grant entitled “Defining genetic and metabolic requirements of aggressive breast cancer” will identify, at the molecular level, anti-neoplastic strategies that target breast cancer stem cells/tumor initiating cells and take advantage of tumor cell selective metabolic processes to ultimately lessen disease related mortality.

Congratulations to Ayusman Dash and Laurel Romano, Graduate Students in the Cancer and Cell Biology Graduate Program!

3/4/20: Both students were awarded the Graduate Student Government Research Fellowship award, which provides a monetary prize towards their research expenses.