Dr. Ryu's Laboratory
Byungwoo Ryu, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Melanoma, Renal Cancer & Immunotherapy
Dr. Ryu joined Nevada Cancer Institute from the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He received his Ph.D. degree from Oregon State University in Molecular Toxicology. Dr. Ryu completed his postdoctoral fellowships at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Ryu served as an instructor and research associate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for four years prior to coming to NVCI. During his time at Johns Hopkins, he received the Howard Temin Award from the NCI.
Laboratory Members
Hye-Eun Kim, Ph.D.
Current Research Interests
The incidence of melanoma is increasing at the highest rate of any cancer in the United States. At present, there are few effective systemic therapies to treat advanced stages of melanoma and the key to improved survival in all affected individuals remains early diagnosis and treatment. It is therefore important to determine the molecular events that dictate melanoma progression since it is likely that identification of such molecular pathways will allow us to identify clinically useful biomarkers as well as potential therapeutic targets against this lethal form of skin cancer.
Biomarkers for melanoma progression. Dr. Ryu and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University previously identified gene signatures which may play critical roles in the malignant melanoma progression. Dr. Ryu’s laboratory currently focuses on these gene signatures aiming to develop molecular markers which are able to predict disease outcomes. We use genomic and molecular profiling techniques to measure patterns of these signatures on specimens from melanoma patients and try to correlate the molecular patterns with clinical outcomes.
Molecular Pathways regulating Cancer cell invasion and Metastasis. Despite recent progress, the molecular mechanisms underlying various patterns of metastasis, which is observed in different tumor types, remains unclear. Isolation and dissection of the disseminated tumor cells in patients with cancer will shed light on the cascade of metastatic events. This information has important implications for cancer prognosis and for therapy. In addition to the pivotal roles in tumor cell transformation and proliferation, deregulated WNT and Ras signaling pathways may also regulate tumor cell migration and invasion processes as well. Our research also focus to detection of disseminated tumor cells and dissect these signaling pathways to investigate how these pathways interact with tumor microenvironment in favor of tumor cell metastasis.
Publications
Cummings SD, Ryu B, Samuels MA, Yu X, Meeker AK, Healey MA, Alani RM. Id1 delays senescence of primary human melanocytes. Mol Carcinog. 2008 Sep;47(9): 653-9.
Ryu B*, Kim DS, DeLuca A, and Alani RM*. Comprehensive gene expression profile of tumor cell lines identifies molecular signatures of melanoma progression. PLoS ONE. 2007 Jul 4;2:e594.
Ryu B, Kim DS, Deluca AM, Healey MA, Dunlap S, Fackler MJ, Herman J, Alani RM. Id1 expression is transcriptionally regulated in radial growth phase melanomas. Int J Cancer. 2007 Oct 15;121(8): 1705-9.
