BBS Faculty Member - Catherine Wu

Catherine Wu

Department of Medicine

Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Dana Building, Room 540
44 Binney St.
Boston, MA 02115
Tel: 617-632-5943
Fax: 617-632-6380
Email: cwu@partners.org
Visit my lab page here.



Dr. Wu’s laboratory focuses on dissecting the underlying mechanisms of pathobiology of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) as a means to more rationally generate effective therapies, including immune-based treatments, for this common adult leukemia. She has been principal investigator of several center-initiated clinical trials, including an ongoing study that examines the effects of a personal whole tumor cell-based vaccine on outcomes following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant for the treatment of CLL. A major priority of her studies is the identification of tumor-specific antigens that would allow effective tumor targeting without collateral toxicity. She has been using exome and transcriptome sequencing technologies to identify unique mutated leukemia antigens that arise from individual-specific genetic alterations within a tumor and that could be potentially targeted immunologically, thus paving the way for developing personalized tumor vaccines. Through large-scale genome analysis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, her laboratory has further discovered key mutated genes and pathways involved in CLL. Other ongoing studies in her laboratory focus on: (a) systematic analyses to couple tumor genotype with phenotype; (b) understanding CLL tumor heterogeneity; and (c) mechanistic studies of novel CLL driver genes.




































Last Update: 7/27/2015



Publications

Wang L*, Lawrence MS*, Wan YZ* Stojanov P, Sougnez C, Stevenson K, Werner L, Sivachenko A, Deluca DS, Zhang L, Zhang W, Vartanov A, Fernandes SM, Goldstein NR, Folco EG, Cibulskis K, Tesar B, Sievers QL, Shefler E, Gabriel S, Hacohen N, Reed R, Meyerson M, Golub TR, Lander ES, Neuberg D, Brown JR*, Getz G*, WU CJ*. SF3B1 and Other Novel Cancer Genes in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. N Engl J Med 2011;365(26):2497-506 (* denotes equal contributors)

Landau DA*, Carter SL*, Stojanov P*, McKenna A, Stevenson K, Lawrence MS, Sougnez C, Stewart C, Sivachenko A, Wang L, Wan YZ, Zhang W, Shukla SA, Vartanov A, Fernandes SM, Saksena G, Cibulskis K, Tesar B, Gabriel S, Hacohen N, Meyerson M, Lander ES, Neuberg D, Brown JR, Getz G*, WU CJ* Evolution and impact of subclonal mutations in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Cell 2013; 152(4):714-26.

Hacohen N, Fritsch EF, Carter TA, Lander ES, WU CJ. Getting personal with neoantigen-based therapeutic cancer vaccines. Cancer Immunology Research 2013 Jul; 1(1):11-5.

Burkhardt UE, Hainz U, Stevenson K, Goldstein NR, Pasek M, Naito M, Wu D, Ho VT, Alonso A, Hammond NN, Wong J, Sievers QL, Brusic A, McDonough S, Zeng WY, Perrin A, Brown JR, Canning CM, Koreth J, Cutler C, Armand P, Neuberg D, Lee JS, Antin JH, Mulligan RC, Sasada T, Ritz J, Soiffer RJ, Dranoff G, Alyea EP, WU CJ. Autologous CLL cell vaccination early after transplant induces leukemia –specific T cells. J Clin Invest (in press)

Bachireddy P, Hainz U, Rooney M, Pozdnyakova O, Aldridge J, Zhang W, Liao X, Hodi FS, O’Connell K, Haining WN, Goldstein NR, Canning CM, Soiffer RJ, Ritz J, Hacohen N, Alyea EP, Kim HT, Wu CJ. Reversal of in situ T cell exhaustion during effective human anti-leukemia responses to donor lymphocyte infusion. Blood 2014, February 27; 123(9):1412-21. PMID: 24357730, PMCID: PMC3938152.

Rajasagi M, Shukla SA, Fritsch EF, Keskin DB, DeLuca D, Carmona E, Zhang W, Sougnez C, Cibulskis K, Sidney J, Stevenson K, Ritz J, Neuberg D, Brusic V, Gabriel S, Lander ES, Getz G, Hacohen N, Wu CJ. Systematic identification of personal tumor-specific neoantigens in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Blood 2014, Jul 17;124(3):453-62. doi: 10.1182/blood-2014-04-567933. Epub 2014 Jun 2. PMID: 24891321, PMCID: PMC4102716


Wang L, Shalek AK, Lawrence M, Ding R, Gaublomme JT, Pochet N, Stojanov P, Sougnez C, Shukla SA, Stevenson KE, Zhang W, Wong J, Sievers QL, MacDonald BT, Vartanov AR, Goldstein NR, Neubrg D, He X, Lander E, Hacohen N, Regev A, Getz G, Brown, JR, Park H, Wu CJ. Somatic mutation as a mechanism of Wnt/b-catenin pathway activation in CLL. Blood 2014, Aug 14;124(7):1089-98. doi: 10.1182/blood-2014-01-552067. Epub 2014 Apr 28. PMID: 24778153

Landau DA, Clement K, Ziller MJ, Boyle P, Fan J, Gu H, Stevenson K, Sougnez C, Wang L, Li S, Zhang W, Ghandi M, Garraway L, Fernandes SM, Livak KJ, Gabriel S, Gnirke A, Lander ES, Brown JR, Neuberg D, Kharchenko PV, Hacohen N, Getz G, Meissner A, Wu CJ. Locally disordered methylation forms the basis of intra-tumor methylome variation in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Cancer Cell 2014; Dec 8;26(6):813-25, PMID: 25490447.

Shukla SA, Rajasagi M, Dixon PM, Tiao G, Lawrence MS, Sougnez C, Brusic V, Cibulskis K, Kiezun A, Wu CJ, Getz G. Sensitive detection of somatic mutations in class I HLA genes reveals enrichment for functional mutations in cancer. Nature Biotechnology 2015 (in press).


Landau DA, Tausch E, Taylor-Weiner AN, Stewart C, Reiter JG, Bahlo J, Kluth S, Bozic I, Lawrence M, Bottcher S, Carter SL, Cibulskis K, Mertens D, Sougnez C, Rosenberg M, Hess JM, Edelmann J, Kless S, Kneba M, Ritgen M, Fink A, Fischer K, Gabriel S, Lander E, Nowak MA, Dohner H, Hallek M, Neuberg D, Getz G, Stilgenbauer S, Wu CJ. Mutations driving CLL and their evolution in progression and relapse. Nature 2015 (in press).



© 2016 President and Fellows
of Harvard College