Biography
Education & Training:
First Military Medical University, China, 1985, M.D. in Medicine
Hokkaido University Medical School, Japan, 1999, Ph.D. in Medical Science
The Ohio State University, 2009, Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cancer Biology
Research Interests:
My research focused on the understanding the mechanisms of NF-kB and cancer development. From my findings, I discovered that NF-kB plays different roles at different stages of tumor development. In normal cells, NF-kB functions as a tumor suppressor to inhibit immortalization of normal cells through regulating DNA repair and genomic stability. However, when cells become immortalized and go through transformation, NF-kB mediated transcription instead regulates a panel of genes to counter innate and adaptive immune systems mediated tumor elimination. This led me to further elucidating how NF-kB can regulate GDF15, a secreted factor, which in turn suppresses macrophage activation thus protected cancer cells, and especially pancreatic cancer cells from this innate immune cell mediated killings. Currently, I am working with Dr. Denis Guttridge and complimenting my expertise in molecular and cellular biology to perform several on-going projects related to pancreatic cancer, cancer cachexia, and the pediatric cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma.
Highlight Publications:
Wang J, Kobayashi M, Sakurada K, Imamura M, Moriuchi T, Hosokawa M. Possible roles of an adult T-cell leukemia (ATL)-derived factor/thioredoxin in the drug resistance of ATL to adriamycin. Blood. 1997 Apr 1;89(7):2480-7. PubMed PMID: 9116292.
Akakura N, Kobayashi M, Horiuchi I, Suzuki A, Wang J, Chen J, Niizeki H, Kawamura Ki, Hosokawa M, Asaka M. Constitutive expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha renders pancreatic cancer cells resistant to apoptosis induced by hypoxia and nutrient deprivation. Cancer Res. 2001 Sep 1;61(17):6548-54. PubMed PMID: 11522653.
Ishikawa T, Chen J, Wang J, Okada F, Sugiyama T, Kobayashi T, Shindo M, Higashino F, Katoh H, Asaka M, Kondo T, Hosokawa M, Kobayashi M. Adrenomedullin antagonist suppresses in vivo growth of human pancreatic cancer cells in SCID mice by suppressing angiogenesis. Oncogene. 2003 Feb 27;22(8):1238-42. PubMed PMID: 12606950.
Wang J, Jacob NK, Ladner KJ, Beg A, Perko JD, Tanner SM, Liyanarachchi S, Fishel R, Guttridge DC. RelA/p65 functions to maintain cellular senescence by regulating genomic stability and DNA repair. EMBO Rep. 2009 Nov;10(11):1272-8. doi: 10.1038/embor.2009.197, PubMed PMID: 19779484; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2775178.
Wang DJ, Ratnam NM, Byrd JC, Guttridge DC. NF-κB functions in tumor initiation by suppressing the surveillance of both innate and adaptive immune cells. Cell Rep. 2014 Oct 9;9(1):90-103, PubMed PMID: 25263557; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4882153.
Ratnam NM, Peterson JM, Talbert EE, Ladner KJ, Rajasekera PV, Schmidt CR, Dillhoff ME, Swanson BJ, Haverick E, Kladney RD, Williams TM, Leone GW, Wang DJ, Guttridge DC. NF-kB regulates GDF-15 to suppress macrophage surveillance during early tumor development. J Clin Invest. 2017 Oct 2;127(10):3796-3809, PubMed PMID: 28891811; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5617672.