Our Science – Huang Website

Jing Huang, Ph.D.

Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics Investigator National Cancer Institute Building 37, Room 3140 37 Convent Drive, MSC 4258 Bethesda, MD 20892-4258 Phone:   301-496-2202 Fax:   301-402-1031 E-Mail:   huangj3@mail.nih.gov

Biography

Dr. Huang received his B.A. from Peking University and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester, New York. After finishing his postdoctoral training at the Wistar Institute, he joined the laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics as a tenure-track Principal Investigator in 2008.

Research

The building module of chromatin is nucleosome. One nucleosome consists of 146 base pairs of DNA and an octomer of histone H2A, H2B, H3 and H4. The tails of histones are subject to various post-translational modifications (PTMs), such as phosphorylation, acetylation, sumoylation and methylation. These PTMs are believed to be part of the underlying mechanism for gene expression regulation. Recent studies have showed that non-histone proteins, such as p53 and estrogen receptor, are also post-translationally modified by histone modifying enzymes. These findings greatly broaden the concept of epigenetics, defined as the inheritable changes in gene expression without genetic alteration.

The research interest in our laboratory focuses on studying how epigenetic events, in particular, methylation and demethylation, are involved in cancer and stem cell differentiation. We plan to use histones, estrogen receptor and p53 as model proteins to study this question. The long-term goal is to identify therapeutic targets and to develop novel approaches to treat cancer stem cells, which are believed to confer chemo-and radio-therapy resistance for certain types of cancer.

Self-motivated and hard-working postdocs are always welcome to contact me via email.

This page was last updated on 12/1/2008.