Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD
THE WISTAR INSTITUTE has announced the appointment of scientist, medical oncologist, and National Academy of Medicine member Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, as Professor.
Dr. Dang, the Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in New York, shapes scientific strategy at Ludwig, as well as oversees operations of its Lausanne, Oxford, and San Diego branches. He is also responsible for aligning the missions of six independent Ludwig Centers across the United States (at Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago).
Role at Wistar
WISTAR WILL host Dr. Dang’s Ludwig Laboratory, which will focus wholly on his own seminal research on cancer and immune cell metabolism and the MYC cancer gene, which was discovered by Dr. Dang and his lab to control gene expression that affects metabolism and cancer cell growth.
At his Ludwig Laboratory at Wistar, Dr. Dang will continue his cancer biology work to connect the field of circadian biology, which focuses on how animals and their cells function in response to the day-night/feeding-fasting cycle, which profoundly affects metabolism. This research could lead to optimizing therapies that affect or utilize metabolism. His aim is to capitalize on an interest in cancer metabolism and determine how cancer cells interact with the immune system, hoping to identify new pathways that could be manipulated to disable cancer cells and awaken the immune system.
“I have spent the last 20 meaningful years in clinical academic leadership roles…committed to upholding and ensuring the highest standards of science from the bench to bedside,” said Dr. Dang. “I will apply that same dedication here at my Ludwig-Wistar lab as a scholar-researcher focused exclusively on discovery science in an environment that will provide me with the sanctuary to think and discover.”
Awards and Leadership Positions
DR. DANG IS THE RECIPIENT of numerous honors, including appointment to the Blue-Ribbon Panel of former Vice President Joe Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. He is currently Chair of the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Advisors. He is a fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, American Society for Clinical Investigation, and Association of American Physicians.
Prior to his appointments at Wistar and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Dr. Dang was the Director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania and the John H. Glick, MD, Abramson Cancer Center Director’s Professor.
Dr. Dang received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. ■
