Dr. Jingyi Wu, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, has been awarded the prestigious National Cancer Institute (NCI) Transition Career Development Award (K22) to support her research on the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms during glioma progression.
The K22 award provides three years of funding to help outstanding early-career scientists establish independent research programs. Dr. Wu’s project aims to uncover how alterations in the epigenome enable tumor cells to switch states, adapt, and resist therapy. By integrating single-cell genomics, epigenetic profiling, and computational modeling, her lab will investigate how cancer cells exploit epigenetic plasticity and identify new therapeutic vulnerabilities.
Dr. Wu’s research builds on her pioneering work developing innovative single-molecule and single-cell genomic tools to map chromatin states and DNA modifications at high resolution. Her previous discoveries have illuminated how epigenetic mechanisms regulate both embryonic development and tumor evolution. Through the K22 award, she will expand these approaches to understand and ultimately target the dynamic epigenetic programs that fuel cancer progression.
This award is a critical milestone in launching her independent lab and will allow the lab to define how genetic and epigenetic alterations interact to drive glioma evolution and to identify biomarkers that could guide more effective, personalized therapies.
Dr. Wu’s laboratory, located in the state-of-the-art Center for Life Sciences Building in the Longwood Medical Area, is part of the BIDMC Cancer Center and affiliated with the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Broad Institute. Her multidisciplinary team combines expertise in cancer biology, epigenetics, neuroscience, and computational biology to decode the molecular logic of cancer.