Rong Wang, PhD
Research Interests
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common and devastating cancers worldwide, with an increasing incidence in the US. HCC is characterized by a highly vascularized tumor M.A.S.s with an arterial blood supply. Targeting tumor vasculature (particularly its arterial supply) could be an effective treatment strategy. However, the mechanisms controlling tumor arterial venous hierarchy during hepatocarcinogenesis remain unknown, as the current study of tumor angiogenesis primarily focuses on microvessels, not the fully functional arterial venous system. My laboratory studies arterial specific Notch and ephrin-B2 pathways in HCC angiogenesis. We focus on the function of these genes in tumor artery formation and HCC progression, through cell lineage-specific inactivation of these genes followed by imaging analysis of both tumor and vessel development.
Selected Publications
- Carlson TR, Hu H, Braren R, Kim YH, and Wang RA. Cell-autonomous requirement for ß1 integrin in endothelial cell adhesion, migration, and survival during angiogenesis in mice. Development 2008; 35:2193-2202.
- Carpenter B, Lin Y, Stoll S, Raffai RL, McCuskey R, Wang R. VEGF is crucial for the hepatic vascular development required for lipoprotein uptake. Development 2005;132:3293-3303.
- He C, Hu H, Braren R, Fong S-Y, Trumpp A, Carlson TR, and Wang RA. c-myc in the hematopoetic lineage is crucial for its angiogenic function in the mouse embryo. Development 2008;135:2467-2477.
- Murphy PA, Wu S, Lam MTY, Kim TN, Vartanian S, Bollen AW, Carlson TR, Wang RA. Increased activation of endothelial Notch4 induces and sustains brain arteriovenous malformations in mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2008, in press.
- Associate Professor
- Surgery/Vascular Surgery
- Director of Laboratory for Accelerated Vascular Research
Research Theme
- Cell-cell signaling in angiogenesis and arterial venous hierarchy in embryos, ischemia, and tumors
Contact Information
- rong.wang@
ucsfmedctr.org - Phone: (415) 476-6855
- Fax: (415) 564-5696
- Laboratory for Accelerated Vascular Research
- 513 Parnassus Ave.
- Box 0507, HSW 1618
- San Francisco, CA 94143-0507
Other UCSF Affiliations
- BMS Graduate Program
- Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Cardiovascular Research Institute
- Tetrad Graduate Program
- Institute for Regeneration Medicine