In the past year the OSUCCC – James has recruited both senior- and junior-level medical scientists, including some who are also members of the new Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology (PIIO). The recruits include these two prominent senior-level scientists:
Bei Liu, MD, MPH, was recruited to Ohio State from the Medical University of South Carolina as a member of the PIIO at the OSUCCC – James. She also is a professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology. Liu has an NIH-funded research program focused on cancer immunotherapy, mucosal and tumor immunology, and innate immunity. She is interested in understanding chaperone biology in B cells, plasma cells and dendritic cells in both normal and pathological conditions. Her lab team discovered that the chaperone grp94 protein is required for multiple myeloma cell survival, which is mediated in part by the Wnt target survivin. Her team also discovered that grp94 critically regulates dendritic cell function in the tumor microenvironment. Liu says the goal of her lab team is to utilize knowledge learned from the immune system’s responses to cellular stress and gut bacteria to develop novel cancer therapeutics.
Dongjun Chung, PhD, was recruited to Ohio State from the Medical University of South Carolina as an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics (BMI) within the College of Medicine. Chung was jointly recruited by BMI and the PIIO at the OSUCCC – James. His research expertise includes statistical genetics, bioinformatics, machine learning and statistical computing. Chung is principal investigator for two NIH-funded grants and contributes to multiple other NIH-funded grants. His research group has published several articles in scientific journals and has developed multiple statistical methods, software and web interface in the areas of high-throughput sequencing, genome-wide association studies, cancer genomics and systems biology.