Wenan Qiang, MD, PhD
Research Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology; Feinberg School of Medicine
Research Program
Cancer-Focused Research
My research focuses on developing clinically relevant and molecularly profiled patient-derived xenograft (PDX) tumor models that aid in understanding cancerous genetic abnormalities, identifying predictive biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and most importantly, developing personalized medicine strategies. I have developed numerous mouse PDX models covering a wide variety of human cancer types, including solid tumors (such as breast, bladder, colon, glioblastoma, liver, ovarian, pancreatic cancer) and hematologic malignancy (such as acute myeloid leukemia, cutaneous T-cell lymphoma). Furthermore, I have established 3D tumor spheroid/organoid cultures that can be used to test drug sensitivity in vitro. Currently, I have many successful collaborative research projects with principal investigators both at the University and beyond. As Associate Director of Patient-Derived Cancer Models in the Center of Developmental Therapeutics (CDT), I have collaborated with many principal investigators to either establish and characterize novel PDX models or identify established PDX tumor models from the CDT PDX repository so that the the applied models fit their research interests, which include in vivo and/or in vitro evaluation of therapies.