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Biographical sketch—Dihua Yu
Dr. Dihua Yu, M.D., Ph.D. is the Hubert L. & Olive Stringer Distinguished Chair in Basic
Science, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), Professor and Deputy Chair,
Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at MDACC, Director of the Cancer
Biology Program at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical SciencesHouston and MDACC, and the Co-Director of the Center of Biological Pathways,
MDACC. Her research focuses on the molecular basis of breast cancer initiation,
progression, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. Her research discoveries have
brought Dr. Yu national and international recognitions. In 2004, she made a highly
significant discovery that PTEN activation is critical for the therapeutic effect of the
targeted anticancer therapy by Herceptin and PTEN-loss confers Herceptin resistance in
patients. This finding has made a significant impact on breast cancer treatment and has
been cited in many leading journals including Nature Reviews Cancer, Nature Reviews
Drug Discovery, New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and news reports by CNN
and NBC. She and her collaborators have recently developed strategies for overcoming
Herceptin-resistance that have led to efficacious Phase I/II clinical trials. Her research
team is exploring different rationally designed, targeted therapeutics for treating human
cancers using various preclinical animal models. Her team identified 14-3-3zeta as a
biomarker for selection of high-risk DCIS patients for treatment at early stages of breast
cancer, while saving low-risk patients from ablative clinical procedures. This line of
research also provided critical targets for intervention of the deadly transition from DCIS
to IBC. Recently, she found that receptor tyrosine kinase signaling and Src activation
can drive initiation and progression of ER- breast cancer. She developed strategies
targeting these pathways to prevent ER- breast cancer in women with mammary atypia.
Her recent new areas of interest include, but not limited to, molecular imaging of breast
cancer progression, stem-like breast cancer cells in brain metastasis, microRNA function
in breast cancer therapeutic resistance and metastasis, epigenetic deregulation in early
stage breast cancer, interactions of cancer cells and their activated stroma in cancer
progression. Dr. Yu has authored 90 peer reviewed articles published in high-profile
peer-reviewed journals such as Cancer Cell, Molecular Cell, Nature Cell Biology, PNAS,
and JNCI. She published about 40 review articles and commentaries and authored 16
book chapters and edited a book. Dr. Yu serves as editors or editorial board members
for 16 journals. Among many services she provided to the community, she has served
as the treasurer of the Society of Chinese Bio-scientist in America, and served as a
board member of the Chinese Bioscience Investigators' Society, both societies are
playing important roles in advancing biological science in Asia.