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Yanying Huo, PhD

Division of Radiation Cancer Biology

Dr. Huo earned her undergraduate and medical degrees from the Institute of Public Health, Shanxi Medical University in China with a major in Preventive Medicine. She earned her Master degree from the Fourth Military Medical University in Epidemiology and PhD from the Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine in Toxicology and Tumor Biology. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Cancer Genetics at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. In July 2019, Dr. Huo was appointed to the position of Assistant Professor, in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences. Dr. Huo’s research focuses on using genetically engineered mouse models to understand how hereditary breast cancers develop. Specifically, she study the roles and mechanisms of the BRCA1-PALB2-BRCA2 DNA damage response pathway, the KEAP1-NRF2 oxidative stress response pathway and autophagy in cancer development, aiming to find new strategies for the prevention and treatment of the disease. She hopes that her research will help clinicians and patients beat the cancers and educate and train the next generation of researchers. Dr. Huo has a total of 83 peer-reviewed publications, of which she is the lead author or correspondence author on 50. Several of her papers were published in high impact journals such as Cancer Discovery and Cancer Research. She has presented her work at both national and international meetings. Dr. Huo is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the Radiation Research Society and the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine (SfRBM). Currently, Dr. Huo is a key member of Dr. Bing Xia’s research team, functioning as both an experimental scientist and an intellectual collaborator. Currently, she is a co-investigator on a P01 grant and a R01 grant. Dr. Huo enjoys reading, hiking, and traveling with her family and friends.

Publications

  1. Foo TK, Vincelli G, Huselid E, Her J, Zheng H, Simhadri S, Wang M, Huo Y, Li T, Yu X, Li H, Zhao W, Bunting SF, Xia B. ATR/ATM-Mediated Phosphorylation of BRCA1 T1394 Promotes Homologous Recombinational Repair and G2–M Checkpoint Maintenance. Cancer Research 81 (18), 4676-4684. (2021)
  2. Huo Y, Selenica P, Mahdi A, Pareja M, Kumar R, Snowman K, Chen Y, Paula A, Basili T, Brown D, Tang Y, Huang Y, Li T, Barnard NJ, Reis-Filho J, Weigelt B, Xia B. Genetic interactions among Brca1, Brca2, Palb2 and Trp53 in mammary tumor development. NPJ breast cancer 7 (1), 1-12. (2021)
  3. Mahdi A*, Huo Y*, Selenica P, Chen Y, Sharma A, Merritt E, Barnard NJ, Chan C, Genesan S, Reis-Filho J, Weigelt B, De S, Xia B. Loss of the BRCA1-PALB2 interaction accelerates p53-associated tumor development in mice. Genes & Diseases (2021) In Press, Corrected Proof. (*Co-first author)
  4. Simhadri S, Vincelli G, Huo Y, Misenko S, Foo TK, Oakley GG, Ganesan S, Bunting SF, Xia B. PALB2 connects BRCA1 and BRCA2 in the G2/M checkpoint response. Oncogene 38 (10):1585-1596. (2019)
  5. Ji H, Zhou Y, Zhuang X, Zhu Y, Wu Z, Lu Y, Li S, Zeng Y, Lu QR, Huo Y, Shi Y, Bu H. HDAC3 deficiency promotes liver cancer through a defect in H3K9ac/H3K9me3 transition. Cancer Research 79 (14): 3676-3688 (2019).
  6. Mahdi A*, Huo Y*, Tan Y, Simhadri S, Vincelli G, Gao J, Ganesan S, Xia B. Evidence of Inter-tissue difference in the DNA damage response and the pro-oncogenic role of NFκB in mice with disrupted BRCA1-PALB2 interaction. Cancer Research 78 (14):3969-3981. (2018) (*co-first author) 7.
  7. Lu K, Alcivar AL, Ma J, Foo TK, Zywea S, Mahdi A, Huo Y, Kensler TW, Gatza ML and Xia B. NRF2 induction supporting breast cancer cell survival is enabled by oxidative stress-induced DPP3-KEAP1 interaction. Cancer Research 77(11):2881-2892. (2017)
  8. Foo TK, Tischkowitz M, Simhadri S, Boshari T, Zayed N, Burke KA, Berman SH, Blecua P, Riaz N, Huo Y, Ding YC, Neuhausen SL, Weigelt B, Reis-Filho JS, Foulkes WD and Xia B. Compromised BRCA1-PALB2 interaction is associated with breast cancer risk. Oncogene 36(29):4161-4170. (2017)
  9. Chandra A, Lin T, Zhu J, Tong W, Huo Y, Jia H, Zhang Y, Liu XS, Cengel K, Xia B and Qin L PTH1-34 Blocks Radiation-Induced Osteoblast Apoptosis by Enhancing DNA Repair through Canonical Wnt Pathway. J Biol Chem 290:157-67. (2015)
  10. Simhadri S, Peterson S, Patel DS, Huo Y, Cai H, Bowman-Colin C, Miller S, Ludwig T, Ganesan S, Bhaumik M, Bunting SF, Jasin M, Xia B. Male Fertility Defect Associated with Disrupted BRCA1-PALB2 Interaction in Mice. J Biol Chem 289 (35), 24617-24629. (2014)
  11. Huo Y, Cai H, Teplova IR, Bowman-Colin C, Chen G, Price S, Miller S, Karantza1 V, White E, Xia B. p53 and autophagy in a model of PALB2-associated hereditary breast cancer. Cancer Discov 3(8): 894-907. (2013)
  12. Nikkilä J, Parplys AC, Pylkäs K, Bose M, Huo Y, Borgmann K, Rapakko K, Nieminen P, Xia B, Pospiech H, Winqvist R. Heterozygous PALB2 mutation causes DNA replication and G2/M cell cycle checkpoint defects. Nat Commun. 4:2578-3578. (2013)
  13. Ma J, Cai H, Wu T, Sobhian B, Huo Y, Mehta M, Cheung KL, Ganesan S, Kong TAN, Zhang DD, Xia B. PALB2 interacts with KEAP1 to promote NRF2-dependent oxidative stress response. Mol Cell Biol. 32(8): 1506-1517. (2012)