Yun “Claudia” Wei, Ph.D.

Yun Claudia Wei, Ph.D., is currently an Assistant Professor in Pediatrics, Hematology and Oncology, with a secondary affiliation at the Simmons Cancer Center. Dr. Wei obtained her Ph.D. in cancer biology from Emory University, focusing on pediatric Sonic hedgehog medulloblastoma under the supervision of Dr. Anna Kenney. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. David Langenau’s lab at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School, focusing on rhabdomyosarcoma, a pediatric soft-tissue malignancy. While there, Dr. Wei discovered the potential cancer stem cell subpopulations in rhabdomyosarcoma through single-cell transcriptomics and bench studies.

Dr. Wei has a long-lasting interest in pediatric tumors, especially the relationship among tumor initiation, cancer stem cells, and normal tissue development. In the Wei lab, she will continue to lead a “humid” research team to further describe pediatric solid tumor heterogeneity using single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics, and will pioneer techniques to track cell state transitions and identify regulatory networks critical to permitting these transitions. She hopes to translate bench findings to future precision medicine, to combat therapy resistance, tumor recurrence/ metastasis– the major cause for fatality in younger cancer patients.