Mong-Hong Lee

Biography

My early work on slow growing mycobacteria (Lee et al. PNAS 1991; Stover et al. Nature 1991) and later research work on characterizing the roles of Cdk inhibitors (CKIs) in human cancer formation have shaped my aspiration to exploit cell cycle regulation in cancer therapy. I have set up research projects focusing on: 1) roles of two CKI molecules that I was involved in cloning (p27, 14-3-3 σ) in tumorigenesis 2) COP9 signalosome-mediated cancer signaling regulation, 3) investigating the impact of hypoxia and Pim1 kinase in cancer drug resistance, 4) employing Aurora B kinase inhibitor for cancer therapy, and 5) investigating the impact of obesity and diabetic conditions on the tumor cancer growth. Over the years, I have been engaged in the important discoveries of cell cycle regulation and tumor suppression. I was involved in the discoveries of the cyclin–dependent kinase inhibitor p27kip1 (Polyak, et al. Cell 1994), p57kip2 (Lee, et al. G&D1995; Yan et al. G&D 1997). At UTMDACC, we demonstrated the first evidence for the functional activity of HER2 in enhancing ubiquitin-mediated degradation of p27 (Yang, et al. JBC 2000), p21 (Zhou, et al. NCB 2000), discovered the regulation of MDM2-p53 by 14-3-3 σ tumor suppressor (Yang, et al. MCB 2003, Yang, et al. Oncogene 2007), characterized the role of 14-3-3 σ in Akt and p27 regulation (Yang, et al. Cancer Research 2006; Yang et al. Oncogene 2006), elucidated the role of Pim1 kinase in hypoxia induced chemoresistance (Chen, et al. Oncogene 2009; Chen, et al. Am J Pathol 2009), developed and characterized knockout mice for cop9 signalosome subunit 6 gene and demonstrated its role in controlling mdm2-p53 axis in DNA damage response and cancer formation (Zhao, et al. JCI 2011, Chen, et al. Nature Communications 2014), identified Cop1 as an E3 ligase for 14-3-3σ (Choi, et al. Oncogene 2011) and characterized association between p53, Aurora B, and Aurora A during mitosis (Gully, et al. PNAS 2012, Wu et al. Cell Cycle 2012). In close collaboration with Drs. Jim Yeung and Francisco Esteva, we organize a new research project to determine the signal regulation of obesity/diabetes in affecting the clinical outcome on various types of cancer and propose a clinical trial for obese breast cancer patients (Fuentes-Mattei, et al.JNCI 2014). Recent works focus on ILF3 in SGOC regulation( Li, Cell Research 2020) ,COP1's impact on FOXO4 stability regulation ( Choi, Advanced Science 2021), and microbiota studies ( Lee, Cancer communications 2021). I also have served in more than 130 Ph.D. student committees including examination, advisory, and supervisory committees. More than 160 trainees including summer students have gained research experience in my lab. I received outstanding educator award at UTMDACC (2003), was awarded the John P. Mcgovern Outstanding Teaching Award (2009) selected among the approximately 570 members of faculty, was also named as an educator of the month at UTMDACC (2010), and selected as U.S. Faculty Scholar of VEF of U.S. government (2013-2015).