Yuzhuo Wang

Dr. Yuzhuo Wang has a dual appointment as a distinguished scientist at the BC Cancer and senior scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. He is a professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the founder of the unique Living Tumor Laboratory. Dr. Wang has authored or co-authored over 190 peer-reviewed articles and 14 book chapters and edited two books related to PDX models of human cancer and tumor dormancy.

Dr. Wang is renowned for his pioneering work in the field of cancer modeling. He created a novel method for establishing patient-derived xenograft (PDX) cancer models that closely resemble patients’ malignancies from which they are derived. His group has established over 300 high fidelity next generation PDX models of a variety of malignancies in his Living Tumor Laboratory. His next generation PDX cancer models have been effectively applied in a number of research areas, including preclinical drug efficacy studies, discovery and validation of potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets, and evidence-based personalized cancer therapy.

Dr. Wang’s scholarly contributions can be highlighted by a number of novel hypotheses he has proposed, such as hypotheses on prostate stem cells, epithelial-immune cell transition (EIT), cancer-generated lactic acid as a critical, immunosuppressive metabolite rather than a ‘waste product’ and tumor dormancy as a non-genetic disease. Based on his innovative theories and ideas, he has maintained an extraordinarily high level of grant funding that have led to widely recognized, ground-breaking research, including the discovery of several new therapeutic targets and the development of novel therapeutics targeting, among others, GATA2, BIRC6, MCT4, HP1-alpha and B7H4 genes. Based on his discoveries, three biotech companies have been formed in Canada. He has been mentoring over 50 co-op students, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. To date, many of them are employed as clinical doctors, academic professors and scientists in industry.

Dr. Wang’s international reputation is widespread. He has been invited to give more than 180 lectures worldwide including at the most prestigious prostate cancer meetings. He has received many awards for his academic achievements in cancer research including a Prostate Cancer Foundation (US) Research Award in 2007, the Translation Research Award from Roche Canada in 2009, the Innovative Scholar Award from the International Cancer Alliance for Research and Education (ICARE), US in 2010, a UBC Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Achievement Award in 2011, a Department of Urologic Sciences Research Teaching Excellence Award in 2015, three UBC Department of Urologic Sciences Outstanding Academic Performance Awards in 2013, 2017 and 2019, and a Movember – PCF Challenge (US) Award in 2020. Notably, he has been inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (FCAHS) since September 2018.