Leadership and Key Members

Hong Wu, M.D., Ph.D, researches the molecular mechanisms of PTEN, a common tumor suppression gene that is often deleted in cancer. She uses a combination of molecular genetics, cell biology and biochemical approaches to study PTEN. By analyzing cells and animals lacking the tumor suppressor gene, Wu has demonstrated that PTEN negatively regulates stem cell self-renewal, proliferation and survival, providing a strong link between stem cell biology and cancer biology.

Wu also has established various animal models for human cancers, including breast and prostate cancer. These mouse cancer models offer unique tools for exploring the molecular mechanism underlying human cancers and for development of new therapies. She recently has embarked on research that may result in more controllable growth of embryonic stem cells, which hold promise as therapies for cancers and neurological diseases.

Wu came to stem cell research as a graduate student working on the most efficient way to introduce disease-related mutations into genes. Her interest further expanded to blood stem cells, which make all the cells that comprise blood, during her postdoctoral work. She hopes her studies will shed light on the molecular basis of human diseases and one day help to eradicate the root cause of many cancers.

In addition to her affiliation with the Broad Stem Cell Research Center, Wu also is a member of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Institute for Molecular Medicine and the ULCA Molecular Biology Institute. Wu earned her doctorate in biological chemistry at Harvard and her medical degree at Beijing Medical College. A professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, Wu joined the UCLA faculty in 1996 after serving as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT.

Wu also is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Hematology, American Association for Cancer Research, American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Society of Chinese Biochemists in America and the Chinese Biomedical Research Investigator Society.

Wu’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and William Lawrence and Blanche Hughes Foundation.