Yun “Claudia” Wei, Ph.D. Titles and Appointments Assistant Professor School Medical School Department Pediatrics | Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center Graduate Programs Cancer Biology Biography 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 advisership of Dr. Anna Kenney. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship with 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 interests in pediatric tumors, especially the relationship between 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 the pediatric solid tumor heterogeneity using single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and will pioneer in developing techniques to track cell states transitions, identify regulatory networks that are critical in 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. Publications Featured Publications Single cell transcriptomic profiling identifies tumor-acquired and therapy-resistant cell states in pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma. Danielli SG, Wei Y, Dyer MA, Stewart E, Sheppard H, Wachtel M, Schäfer BW, Patel AG, Langenau DM, Nat Commun 2024 Jul 15 1 6307 Single-cell analysis and functional characterization uncover the stem cell hierarchies and developmental origins of rhabdomyosarcoma. Wei Y, Qin Q, Yan C, Hayes MN, Garcia SP, Xi H, Do D, Jin AH, Eng TC, McCarthy KM, Adhikari A, Onozato ML, Spentzos D, Neilsen GP, Iafrate AJ, Wexler LH, Pyle AD, Suvà ML, Dela Cruz F, Pinello L, Langenau DM, Nat Cancer 2022 Aug 3 8 961-975 Single-cell imaging of T cell immunotherapy responses in vivo. Yan C, Yang Q, Zhang S, Millar DG, Alpert EJ, Do D, Veloso A, Brunson DC, Drapkin BJ, Stanzione M, Scarfò I, Moore JC, Iyer S, Qin Q, Wei Y, McCarthy KM, Rawls JF, Dyson NJ, Cobbold M, Maus MV, Langenau DM, J Exp Med 2021 Oct 218 10 Tumour-associated macrophages exhibit anti-tumoural properties in Sonic Hedgehog medulloblastoma. Maximov V, Chen Z, Wei Y, Robinson MH, Herting CJ, Shanmugam NS, Rudneva VA, Goldsmith KC, MacDonald TJ, Northcott PA, Hambardzumyan D, Kenney AM, Nat Commun 2019 06 10 1 2410 p53 Function is Compromised by Inhibitor 2 of Phosphatase 2A in Sonic Hedgehog Medulloblastoma. Wei Y, Maximov V, Morrissy AS, Taylor MD, Pallas DC, Kenney AM Mol. Cancer Res. 2018 Sep Structural transitions of centromeric chromatin regulate the cell cycle-dependent recruitment of CENP-N. Fang J, Liu Y, Wei Y, Deng W, Yu Z, Huang L, Teng Y, Yao T, You Q, Ruan H, Chen P, Xu RM, Li G Genes Dev. 2015 May 29 10 1058-73 Results 1-6 of 6 1 Honors & Awards SASS Young Investigator Travel Award (2024-2024) Texas CPRIT First-time tenure track Investigator Recruitment Award (2024) NIH National Cancer Institute K99/R00 Transition Award (2023) MGH ECOR Award for Medical Discovery (2022-2023) Friends of TJ and Summer's Way Foundation Fellowship (2021-2022) Professional Associations/Affiliations American Association for Cancer Research (2014)
