Mingxia Gu, MD, PhD

Leveraging her expertise in human iPSC-derived vessel organoids, Dr. Gu and her lab will be developing cancer-relevant models to study tumor–vascular interactions and identify therapeutic targets. They will establish vascularized brain tumor organoids that recapitulate the tumor microenvironment and enable drug screening for therapies targeting tumor angiogenesis and drug delivery. They are also developing lymphatic organoid platforms to study cancer cell metastasis and mechanisms of lymphatic dissemination, as well as models of KRAS mutation–driven vascular malformations to investigate oncogenic signaling in aberrant vascular remodeling. In addition, they aim to apply our vascularized lung organoid system to examine tumor vasculature in lung cancer progression and therapy response. Together, these integrated platforms will provide unique opportunities for translational cancer research and precision drug discovery.

Ao Z, Wu Z, Cai H, Hu L, Li X, Kaurich C, Chang J, Gu M, Cheng L, Xin L, Guo F. Rapid profiling of tumor-immune interaction using acoustically assembled patient-derived cell clusters. Advanced Science. 2022 May 25; e2201478. PMID: 35611994.

Ao Z, Cai H, Wu Z, Hu L, Li X, Kaurich C, Gu M, Cheng L, Lu X, Guo F. Evaluation of cancer immunotherapy using mini-tumor chips. Theranostics. 2022 May 1;12(8):3628-3636. PMID: 35664082.

Wu Z, Ao Z, Cai H, Li X, Chen B, Tu H, Wang Y, Lu RO, Gu M, Cheng L, Lu X, Guo F. Acoustofluidic assembly of primary tumor-derived organotypic cell clusters for rapid evaluation of cancer immunotherapy. Journal of Nanobiotechnology. 2023 Feb 4;21(1):40. PMID: 36739414.