Wei Du

Wei Du | Editor

Affilation: University of Arkansas for Medical Science, USA

Biography:

With many career avenues available to scientists today, I view academic research as the most productive pathway to test clinically relevant hypotheses through unbiased basic research. My graduate research at Tohoku University, Japan focused on the genetic mutations in Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome. These projects resulted in the first report describing somatic mosaicism due to a spontaneous second-site mutation in the initiation codon. After completing my Ph.D. in 2007, I began my research work in Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. During the last several years, my research has centered on pathophysiology of hematologic diseases such as bone marrow (BM) failure and leukemia.  In addition, I have been investigating the mechanism of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) mobilization and bone marrow niche engraftment as well as the factors implicated in cell proliferation and apoptosis. I have identified functional interactions between certain factors implicated in cell polarity, adhesion and migration. I have published 20 peer-reviewed scientific papers in high-impacted scientific journals of Hematology.  Among them, I have been served as first-author for 10 times and Correspondingly-author for 5 times. My post-doctoral fellowship has been supported by a competitive Fanconi Anemia Research Fund (FARF) and a NIH T32 grant in Hematologic and Oncologic diseases.

Research Interest:

Stem cell biology and pathophysiology of bone marrow failure and leukemia; identifying and targeting DNA damage response and repair pathways required for cancer progression; hematopoietic stem cell-bone marrow niche interaction.