Jinsong Liu
Professor
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Pathology, Anatomical
The research in my laboratory is directed at understanding of genetic events transforming normal human ovarian epithelial cells into ovarian cancer. A strong focus in my laboratory is to introduce oncogenes into human ovarian epithelial cells in a stepwise manner and create genetically defined models for human ovarian cancer in mice. Second area of interest is to study the mechanisms how senescent fibroblasts promote tumor growth. We have shown that fibroblasts near cancer epithelial cells are senescent, such senescent fibroblasts can promote the ovarian tumor growth. Activated RAS oncogene sends chemokine Gro-1 to the stroma to induce accelerated senescence of these fibroblasts thus to synchronize the growth of epithelial cancer cells with their microenvironment. Third major interest is to identify the novel diagnostic and prognostic markers for human ovarian cancer. We are using cDNA microarray to examine the genetic events involved in the transformation from in vitro model and ovarian cancer specimens from ovarian cancer patients. The diagnostic and prognostic markers are compared with ovarian cancer tissue microarray containing hundreds of patients ovarian cancer linked with patients clinical outcome data on a single slide. In this way, we hope to identify early diagnostic markers for ovarian cancer, which can be cured if detected at an early age.
Depending on the student's interests, a tutorial in my laboratory would provide experience with basic cancer mechanism involved in ovarian and breast cancer development or clinical translational research. Our group has been highly productive (see our publication list) and environment for student's learning is superb.
PubMed
Education & Training
M.D. - Shanghai Medical University - 1983
Ph.D. - Case Western Reserve University - 1991