Ching C. Lau, MD, PhD

Meet Ching C. Lau, MD, PhD

Education

Education:
BA, Rice University, 1977
PhD, Harvard University, 1982
MD, Harvard University, 1994

Residency:
Baylor College of Medicine, 1993-1996

Fellowship:
Cancer Genetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Center, 1982-1984
Pediatric Hematology & Oncology, Baylor College of Medicine, 1996-1998

Board Certifications

Faculty Appointment

Professor of Pediatrics, University of Connecticut School of Medicine and Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine

Clinical Expertise

• Brain tumors
• Osteosarcoma
• Precision oncology
• Genomics and genetics of cancer

Selected Publications

• Man TK, Chintagumpala M, Visvanathan J, Shen J, Perlaky L, Hicks J, Johnson M, Davino N, Murray J, Helman L, Meyer W, Triche T, Wong KK, Lau CC. (2005) Expression profiles of osteosarcoma that can predict response to chemotherapy. Cancer Res, 65:8142-50.

• Shete S, Hosking FJ, Robertson LB, Dobbins SE, Sanson M, Malmer B, Simon M, Marie Y, Boisselier B, Delattre JY, Hoang-Xuan K, Hallani SE, Idbaih A, Zelenika D, Anderson U, Henriksson R, Bergenheim AT, Feychting M, Lönn S, Ahlbom A, Schramm J, Linnebank M, Hemminki K, Kumar R, Hepworth SJ, Price A, Armstrong G, Liu Y, Gu X, Yu R, Lau CC, Schoemaker M, Muir K, Swerdlow A, Lathrop M, Bondy M, Houlston RS. (2009) Genome-wide association study identifies five susceptibility loci for glioma. Nature Genet, 41:899-904.

• Shete S, Lau CC, Houlston RS, Claus EB, Barnholtz-Sloan J, Lai R, Il’yasova D, Schildkraut J, Sadetzki S, Johansen C, Bernstein JL, Olson SH, Jenkins RB, Yang P, Vick NA, Wrensch M, Davis FG, McCarthy BJ, Leung EH, Davis C, Cheng R, Hosking FJ, Armstrong GN, Liu Y, Yu RK, Henriksson R; Gliogene Consortium, Melin BS, Bondy ML. (2011) Genome-wide high-density SNP linkage search for glioma susceptibility loci: results from the Gliogene Consortium. Cancer Res, 71:7568-75. 2011.

• Wang L, Yamaguchi S, Burstein MD, Terashima K, Chang K, Ng HK, Nakamura H, He Z, Doddapaneni H, Lewis L, Wang M, Suzuki T, Nishikawa R, Natsume A, Terasaka S, Dauser R, Whitehead W, Adekunle A, Sun J, Qiao Y, Marth G, Muzny DM, Gibbs RA, Leal SM, Wheeler DA & Lau CC (2014). Novel somatic and germline mutations in intracranial germ cell tumors. Nature, 511(7508):241-5.

• Ma X, Liu Y, Liu Y, Alexandrov LB, Edmonson MN, Gawad C, Zhou X, Li Y, Rusch MC, Easton J, Huether R, Gonzalez-Pena V, Wilkinson MR, Hermida LC, Davis S, Sioson E, Pounds S, Cao X, Ries RE, Wang Z, Chen X, Dong L, Diskin SJ, Smith M, Guidry Auvil JM, Meltzer PS, Lau CC, Perlman EJ, Maris JM, Meshinchi S, Hunger SP, Gerhard DS, Zhang J. Mutational Landscape of the Genomes and Transcriptomes of 1,699 Pediatric Cancers, Nature 2018;555(7696):371-376. doi: 10.1038/nature25795.

• Huang L, Garrett Injac S, Cui K, Braun F, Lin Q, Du Y, Zhang H, Kogiso M, Lindsay H, Zhao S, Baxter P, Adekunle A, Man TK, Zhao H, Li XN, Lau CC, Wong STC. Systems biology-based drug repositioning identifies digoxin as a potential therapy for groups 3 and 4 medulloblastoma. Sci Transl Med. 2018 Oct 24; 10(464): eaat0150. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aat0150. PubMed PMID: 30355798

• Amin SB, Anderson KJ, Boudreau CE, Martinez-Ledesma E, Kocakavuk E, Johnson KC, Barthel FP, Varn FS, Kassab C, Ling X, Kim H, Barter M, Lau CC, Ngan CY, Chapman M, Koehler JW, Long JP, Miller AD, Miller CR, Porter BF, Rissi DR, Mazcko C, LeBlanc AK, Dickinson PJ, Packer RA, Taylor AR, Rossmeisl JH Jr, Woolard KD, Heimberger AB, Levine JM, Verhaak RGW. Comparative Molecular Life History of Spontaneous Canine and Human Gliomas. Cancer Cell. 2020 Feb 10;37(2):243-257.e7. doi: 1016/j.ccell.2020.01.004. PubMed PMID: 32049048; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7132629.

Additional Information

ADVANCING PEDIATRIC BRAIN TUMOR CARE 

Ching C. Lau, M.D., Ph.D., since 2016 has served as JAX Professor, Division Head in UConn’s Department of Pediatrics’ Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, and Martin J. Gavin Endowed Chair of Hematology-Oncology at Connecticut Children’s. He’s accelerating the pace and success rate of clinical trials in pediatric cancer patients using new genomic technologies to better understand pediatric brain and bone cancers and rapidly develop new therapeutic treatments for patients via translational research, especially difficult to treat brain tumors.

By combining in silico drug screening and mouse model findings with genomic medicine to choose the best therapy for each patient, Lau hopes to improve the speed and outcome of clinical trials and reduce cancer care side effects for children. His latest research is gaining insight on the underlying genomics of common and difficult to treat brain tumor to target them genetically with novel therapeutics. Plus, he’s working to test and reposition current heart drugs to help expand the fight against complicated brain tumors.  More recently he is leading an international team of investigators in industry and academia to develop a cloud-based platform to facilitate data sharing and integration through global collaboration.