Dr. Haizhen (Jen) Wang’s Research Interests:
My overall research interests are to understand critical molecular mechanisms of cancer initiation/progression, and to translate these mechanisms into cancer therapy. The focus of my laboratory is to elucidate the functional roles of cyclin/CDK and metabolic proteins in both cancer cells and tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs).
Current Project:
CDK6 in regulating leukemia infiltration and relapse
The most common cause of treatment failure in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) remains relapse. Infiltration is a critical step for extramedullary relapse. It is extremely important to understand the largely unknown infiltration mechanism in order to develop novel therapies with high efficacy for both newly diagnosed and relapsed T-ALL. Cyclin D3/CDK6 is the major cyclin D/CDK in T-ALL, and the CDK6 kinase activity in T-ALL is enhanced as its inhibitors, CDKN2A/2B, are mutated in over 50% of T-ALL cases. Targeting CDK6 for T-ALL therapy is very promising as it prevents leukemia cell proliferation and induces apoptosis. It is not clear whether or how CDK6 regulates T-ALL infiltration. We will elucidate novel regulatory mechanisms of cyclin D3/CDK6 in T-ALL infiltration.
