Professional Activities:

Positions and Honors

2007-2011	Postdoctoral Research Fellow	Stanford University School of Medicine/Hematology Department
2012-Present	Research Associate	Stanford University School of Medicine/Hematology Department

Awards & Honors

National Cancer Institute-UO1 Grant	Functional analysis of oncogenic networks in primary organoids	(2012-Present)
National Institutes of Health (NIH) RO1 Grant	Wnt and Hh Signaling Pathways in Adult Physiology	(2009-2012)
Dean’s Fellowship	Stanford University	(2007-2008)
Doctoral Scholarship	University of Alabama at Birmingham	(2000-2006)
First Prize, Award for Academic Excellence	China Agricultural University	(1996-1999)
Third Prize, Award for Academic Excellence	China Agricultural University	(1995)

Relevant Experience

Stanford University School of Medicine/Hematology Department (2012-Present)

Research Scientist

• Accomplished the first in vitro oncogenic transformation of primary colon,  gastric and pancreatic  tissue to adenocarcinoma with in vivo tumorigenicity
• Developed an in vitro functional validation system using primary organoid culture for selected  oncogenic driver candidates of gastrointestinal cancer based on bioinformatics analysis of cancer genomic databases.
• Investigated mechanism of identified oncogenic drivers.
• Improving the functional validation system toward high-throughput screening for therapeutic drug discovery utilizing 96-well formatted primary cell-based selection, flow cytometry, proliferation and  invasion assays.

Stanford University School of Medicine/Hematology Department (2007-2011)

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

• Built a retrovirus library of selected colorectal cancer candidate drivers
• In vitro modeling of colorectal cancer using a robust long-term methodology of primary mouse intestinal organoid culture.
• Investigated intestinal stem cell /cancer stem (LGR5+) cell biology utilizing primary intestinal culture.

University of Alabama-Birmingham, Comprehensive Cancer Center (2000-2006)

Graduate Student Scientist

• Generated a Gli1 conditional expression mouse model for basal cell carcinoma (BCC) to investigated downstream mechanisms underlying Shh-Gli1-meidated transformation.
• Identified Snail as a limiting factor of Gli1-induced transformation in vitro and an early response gene of Gli1-mediated basal cell carcinoma (BCC).
• Determined a role of Wnt signaling pathway in Gli1-Snail-mediated tumorigenesis.

Chinese Academy of Sciences (C.A.S), Institute of Microbiology (1999-2000)

Research Assistant

• Characterized two insect-resistant genes in homozygous cotton lines.