AACR to honor PU professor with Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research

A researcher from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) and Princeton University who is helping to advance the molecular understanding of cancer metastasis is being recognized for his work by cancer specialists from around the globe. Yibin Kang, PhD, a member of the Genomic Instability and Tumor Progression Program at CINJ and an associate professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, will receive the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) being held in Chicago later this month. Princeton University is recognized by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a consortium partner of CINJ. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

The Annual AACR-Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research was established in 1981 to recognize an investigator aged 40 or younger on the basis of meritorious achievement in cancer research. Dr. Kang was selected by a prestigious international committee of renowned cancer leaders for his "outstanding work related to the intricate interactions between tumor cells and stromal components during the metastasis of breast cancer to bone and other organs." Kang's laboratory has been leading an effort to decipher the complex network of genes that facilitate the escape of cancer cells from primary tumors such as breast, as well as their survival in blood circulation and eventual colonization of vital organs.

Kang has extensive expertise in using the mouse as a model system to identify the molecular mechanism of cancer progression and to develop new therapeutic agents. Since 2010, he has served as a co-director of the Transgenic/Knockout Mouse Shared Resource. This Shared Resource, supported by a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-NCI P30CA072720 Cancer Center Support Grant, provides a centralized expert facility for the generation of genetically engineered animals. The steadily expanding use of genetically engineered mouse models in cancer research has resulted in an explosion of information on the in vivo functions of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. This Shared Resource allows research members at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and Princeton University to affordably further their animal model-dependent research.

"It is a privilege to receive this award from the AACR and an honor to be recognized by leaders in the field," noted Kang. "Through continued collaboration with my distinguished colleagues, I am hopeful that we will be able to further elucidate the inner workings of cancer metastasis and apply that knowledge toward the development of targeted therapies." At the conference, Kang will deliver an award lecture entitled: "Decoding Tumor-Stromal Interactions in Breast Cancer Metastasis."