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Yibin Kang, PhD

Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey

Titles and Affiliations

Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology

Research area

Targeting metastatic breast cancer at the nexus of cancer progression and immune response.

Impact

Metastatic breast cancer (MBC)—when breast cancer spreads to other organs—is incurable and responsible for the majority of breast cancer deaths. Dr. Kang and his team identified a protein, metadherin (MTDH), that is generated by many breast tumors and its presence predicts poor outcome for patients. The team found that MTDH promotes both metastasis and chemo-resistance in cancer cells and helps tumors evade the immune system, making it a promising target for therapy. It is also present in immune cells, but the role of MTDH in immune cells is unknown. Dr. Kang’s team will explore this further to see if blocking MTDH could help promote an anti-tumor response by the immune system. The findings from this research may pave the way toward a new immunotherapy approach for metastatic breast cancer.

Progress Thus Far

The team developed a drug to target MTDH and found that it dramatically inhibits breast cancer progression and metastasis by enhancing immune cell infiltration into the tumors. The team also tested their MTDH drug in combination with anti-PD-1 therapy, a type of immunotherapy, and the two worked well together to suppress breast cancer progression. Recently, the team found that blocking MTDH improved anti-tumor immunity in a breast tumor model.

What’s next

In the coming year, Dr. Kang will investigate how MTDH works to suppress the immune system in metastatic breast cancers and its role in regulating metastatic progression. The findings from this research may pave the way for a new immunotherapy approach for metastatic breast cancer.

Biography

Yibin Kang is Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology and American Cancer Society Research Professor at Princeton University. He graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai in 1995. After completing his graduate study at Duke in 2000, Dr. Kang became an Irvington Institute postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Joan Massagué at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and pioneered a functional genomic approach to elucidate mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis. Dr. Kang joined the faculty of Princeton University as an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology in 2004. He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010 and to Endowed Professor in 2012.

Dr. Kang’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis. His laboratory discovered new genes that promote recurrence, metastasis and chemoresistance of breast cancer, delineated tumor-stromal interactions that are essential for metastatic growth, and identified novel regulators with dual functions in mammary gland cell fate determination and tumor progression. Dr. Kang has published over 100 original articles in leading journals including Cell, Cancer Cell, and Nature Medicine. Dr. Kang’s outstanding achievements have been recognized by many awards, including a Department of Defense Era of Hope Scholar Award (2006), the 2011 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Sciences (2011), the AACR Award for Outstanding Achievements in Cancer Research (2012), the Fidler Innovation Award from the Metastasis Research Society (2014) and the Fuller Albright Award from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (2014). Dr. Kang was elected as President of the Metastasis Research Society for the 2016-2018 term.

BCRF Investigator Since

2014

Areas of Focus

Metastasis Tumor Biology