Jennifer Wang
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center at Houston
Department of Head and Neck Surgery
Dr. Rui Jennifer Wang, MD,PhD is a surgeon-scientist whose translational laboratory focuses on incorporating genomic biomarkers with clinicopathologic features to predict outcomes in head and neck cancers. Dr. Wang has a special interest in examining genomic alterations in aggressive thyroid cancers in the context of tumor evolution, treatment resistance, and survival outcomes. Specifically, the Wang lab has the following areas of focus:
- Studying how thyroid cancers evolve from well-differentiated/indolent (i.e. papillary thyroid cancer) phenotypes to highly aggressive/life threatening phenotypes (i.e. anaplastic thyroid cancer) using bulk sequencing and single-cell sequencing techni
- Identifying mechanisms of resistance as well as potential therapeutic targets in aggressive thyroid cancers using computational approaches
- Integrate germline genetic alterations with somatic genomic alterations to identify clinically-relevant biomarkers
Dr. Wang is a core member of the specialized Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer program (FAST) at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is a rare but highly lethal cancer. The program currently sees the largest number of patients with this cancer type in the world. Students in Dr. Wang’s lab will have the opportunity to conduct highly clinically-relevant research using data and samples collected from clinical trials and prospective patient cohorts on this rare cancer type and others. Generated data include whole exome sequencing, whole genome sequencing, RNAseq, single-cell DNAseq and single-cell RNAseq.
Education & Training
MD, University of Toronto, 2010
PhD, Johns Hopkins University, 2023