Very happy to see our work on PTK7 as a novel molecular driver in metastatic HCC finally published in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Congrats to Matthew! Read the article here.

Findings from this study demonstrated PTK7 as a novel regulator of HCC metastasis. Specifically, we found PTK7 to be critical in driving TGF-β signaling activation, induction of metastatic phenotypes, and guiding of specific epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) status.

Happy to have the opportunity to co-guest edit this special issue for Essays in Biochemistry with Terence Lee. We have assembled a nice series of reviews with contributions from Dean Tang, Alan Wong, Masaru Katoh, Stephanie Xie, Junfang Ji, Youhua Tan, Mohit Kumar Jolly, Chunzhang Yang, Xin-Yuan Guan, as well as articles from Terence and my own teams. In particular, our Ph.D. student Toni contributed a review article on ‘Mechanisms of resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitors in liver cancer stem cells and potential therapeutic approaches.

Check it out at https://portlandpress.com/essaysbiochem/issue/66/4.

Thrilled to have an opportunity to contribute a review article to the journal Hepatology. Our Ph.D. student Sheree provided a nice summary of our current understanding of noncellular components of the liver cancer stem cell niche and their potential clinical implications.

Happy to share our new review paper on ‘Organoids as research models for hepatocellular carcinoma’ published in Experimental Cell Research. A great way to wrap up 2021. Congrats to Justin, our MRes(Med) student, on his very first paper!

Happy to share our new Cancer Research paper from a fruitful collaboration with Dr. Alan Wong’s team. Thank you Alan for leading this project and for involving us. Congrats to the two co-first authors Xu Feng and Carol!




Click here for the full article.

Very happy to see our work on FSTL1+ CAFs in driving HCC stemness and metastasis finally published in the most recent issue of Cancer Research. Also out is our recently published and related mini-review article on the role of CAFs in the maintenance of stemness in the tumor microenviornment. Very well done, JJ, Carol, Natalie, and the team. We also thank our collaborators for their support.

Read the Cancer Research and Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology articles here.

Stepped out of our comfort zone and explored into lineage tracing and scRNA-seq. Years of hard work with great preserverance from our three leading authors Lena, Ken and Eric; and a wonderful collaboration with Dr. Joshua Ho. Excited to share our lab’s latest work published in Gut.

Lineage tracing and single-cell analysis reveal proliferative Prom1+ tumor-propagating cells and their dynamic cellular transition during liver cancer progression – read all about it here!

It’s finally out! Check out our review in Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology detailing the most updated knowledge of liver cancer stem cell biology. Thanks to the authors involved. Truly a pleasure to be able to work with NatRevGastroHep. Read here.

Happy to share our lab’s latest work published in the Aug 24 2021 issue of Cell Reports. Loss of tyrosine catabolic enzyme HPD promotes glutamine anaplerosis through mTOR signaling in liver cancer. Great work by Carol with collaborations from Zongwei Cai’s group of Baptist University in Hong Kong. Open access here.

Thrilled to announce our new paper published in the June 1 2021 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Read about our findings on how FUT1 mediates fucoyslation of membrane-bound proteins, including CD147, EGFR, ICAM-1 and EPHA2, to drive cancer stemness in a glucose-deprived HCC microenvironment. Congrats to Jane and the team! Link to full article here.