The research of Wei Yang, PhD, is focused on developing and applying leading-edge proteomics technologies to discover novel cancer biomarkers, to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer progression to lethal diseases, and to identify novel anti-cancer therapeutic targets. In the past few years, Yang's lab has developed powerful shotgun proteomics technologies that enable deep profiling and accurate quantification of the proteome, the palmitoylproteome and the phosphoproteome. Moreover, Yang and his colleagues have applied these leading-edge technologies to elucidate the molecular basis of cancer progression in cell culture models and, more excitingly, to determine the expression, palmitoylation and phosphorylation levels of thousands of proteins in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded cancer specimens, a gold mine for cancer biomarker discovery.

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• Undergraduate: Beijing Institute of Technology, 2001
• Doctorate: Peking University, 2006

• Cancer Institute (Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute)
• Department of Surgery
• Cancer
• Surgery

Click here for a list of peer-reviewed publications.

• Zhou B, An M, Freeman MR, Yang W. Technologies and challenges in proteomic analysis of protein S-acylation. J Proteomics Bioinform. 2014;7(9):256-263.
• Yang W, Ramachandran A, You S, Jeong H, Morley S, Mulone MD, Logvinenko T, Kim J, Hwang D, Freeman MR, et al. Integration of proteomic and transcriptomic profiles identifies a novel PDGF-MYC network in human smooth muscle cells. Cell Commun Signal. 2014 Aug 1;12:44.
• Yang W, Chung YG, Kim Y, Kim TK, Keay SK, Zhang CO, Ji M, Hwang D, Kim KP, Steen H, et al. Quantitative proteomics identifies a beta-catenin network as an element of the signaling response to Frizzled-8 protein-related antiproliferative factor. Mol Cell Proteomics. 2011;10(6):M110.007492.