Newswise — (PHILADELPHIA) -- Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, a renowned cancer biologist and hematologist-oncologist, has been appointed director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, effective September 1, 2011. Dr. Dang is currently a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the departments of Medicine, Cell Biology, Oncology, Pathology, and Molecular Biology & Genetics. He also serves as Vice Dean for Research and Executive Director of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
“Dr. Dang brings to Penn Medicine a rich combination of experience as a physician-researcher, educator and innovator in the biomedical sciences,” said Arthur Rubenstein, MBBCh, Executive Vice President of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and Dean of the Perelman School of Medicine. “A true interdisciplinary investigator, he is perfectly positioned to lead us into a new era of collaborative research that will cement our role as an international leader in novel therapies – and cures -- for cancers of all kinds.”
Dang points to Penn Medicine’s efforts to harness academic rigor to improve the health and well-being of patients as a key factor in his decision to join the Abramson Cancer Center.
“I feel very privileged and excited for the opportunity to lead the Abramson Cancer Center into an era of innovative personalized cancer care through the establishment of disease-specific translational centers of excellence in partnership with outstanding leadership and the biomedical community elsewhere at Penn,” Dang said. “The culture of collaboration and the collegiality is palpable at Penn, making my goal of harnessing Penn's scientific power to bring new hope for cancer patients an invigorating challenge.”
Dr. Dang’s laboratory has contributed to the understanding of the function of the MYC cancer gene, which has emerged as a central transcription factor, or gene switch, in many different human cancers. His group documented the function of Myc in regulating microRNAs that have been implicated in tumorigenesis, and his laboratory established the first mechanistic link between the MYC cancer gene and cellular energy metabolism, contributing to the concept that genetic alterations re-program tumors to render them addicted to certain fuel sources. His laboratory is now exploiting these concepts for therapeutic targeting of cancer cell metabolism as a new way to treat cancer. Most recently, he became the principal investigator for Johns Hopkins in a Stand Up to Cancer grant awarded to Penn Medicine from the American Association for Cancer Research to investigate how to “cut off the fuel supply” for pancreatic cancer. He also holds grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to study Myc function, hypoxia, and the development of novel cancer therapeutics that target metabolism. He is the author of more than 200 scientific publications.
Born in Saigon, Viet Nam, Dr. Dang arrived in the United States in 1967 and earned a BS in chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1975. In 1978, he earned his PhD in chemistry at Georgetown University. Four years later, he received his MD degree from The Johns Hopkins University. Following his internship and residency in medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dang completed a fellowship in hematology-oncology at the Cancer Research Institute of the University of California at San Francisco. In 1987, he was appointed assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, where he remained until joining Penn Medicine. During his tenure there, he has served as chief of the division of Hematology, Deputy Director of Research for the Department of Medicine. Since 2000, he has served as Vice Dean for Research for the entire school, overseeing research administration, policy coordination, and technology transfer.
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Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4 billion enterprise.Penn's Perelman School of Medicine is currently ranked #2 in U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools and among the top 10 schools for primary care. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $507.6 million awarded in the 2010 fiscal year.
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