Yinu Wang, PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology
Research Program
- Translational Research in Malignancy (TRIM)
Cancer-Focused Research
My research interest focuses on understanding the mechanisms contributing to recurrence and chemoresistance in ovarian cancer (OC) to improve clinical outcomes. I have developed emerging experience in the field of OC biology and novel therapeutics for chemoresistant OC throughout my academic career. To understand the mechanisms contributing to the emergence of chemoresistant recurrent tumors, I primarily focused on the role of a small population of OC cells, defined as cancer stem cells (CSCs), driving tumor relapse and on developing novel strategies to target this population to prevent recurrent and chemoresistant OC. My previous work contributed to identifying and characterizing CSCs in OC and defined key signaling pathways contributing to the formation and maintenance of OCSCs. I also laid the groundwork for investigating epigenetic targeting of OCSCs, especially on reversing the DNA methylome of OCSCs using DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTi). My current research focuses on defining epigenetic signatures and the 3D chromatin nanoarchitecture of ovarian CSCs, which links the physical properties of chromatin in ovarian CSCs with epigenetic mechanisms regulating gene transcription, to discover specific vulnerabilities of CSCs. A special focus of my research is to investigate the role of adaptation to increased oxidative stress in regulating chromatin organization and maintaining the transcriptional activity of genes involved in stemness and chemoresistance. The long-term goal of my research is to develop tools to prevent recurrent and chemoresistant OC and to improve the quality and overall survival of women with OC.