Chang-Hyuk Kwon, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Neurological Surgery

Degree: University of Tennessee, Memphis
Postdoctoral Training: University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dr. Luis Parada

Contact Information
820 Biomedical Research Tower
460 W. 12th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210
PHONE: (614) 688-5867
FAX: (614) 688-4181
E-MAIL: Chang-Hyuk.Kwon@osumc.edu or kwon.172@osu.edu

Link to NLM PubMed publications list for Chang-Hyuk Kwon (last 10 years)

Research Area:

• Brain tumor stem cells, in comparison with normal neural stem cells
• Modeling brain disorders (such as brain tumors and behavior) in mice
• Search for therapeutic targets of the human brain disorders
• PI3K/PTEN signaling in brain disorders

Current Research:

The major project in my laboratory is high-grade astrocytomas, including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most aggressive and common glioma. This tumor type is resistant to all available current cancer therapies. Thus, patients with GBM have median survival of only one year. Despite vigorous efforts in clinics and laboratories, the prognosis of high-grade astrocytomas has not been greatly changed in decades. We have generated mouse models of high-grade astrocytomas, by conditionally deleting one or two alleles of tumor suppressor genes (Nf1, p53 and Pten) in mouse neural cells. These tumor suppressor genes belong to top five frequent genetic abnormalities found in human astrocytomas, thus our mouse models are the best known genocopies of the tumor type. Our mouse models are indistinguishable from littermate controls until adult ages when they spontaneously develop high-grade astrocytomas. The mouse tumors recapitulate histopathological findings of human high-grade astrocytomas. To provide therapeutic clues of the devastating disease, my laboratory is studying following subprojects:

1. Searching for origin cell type(s) of high-grade astrocytomas
2. Comparing tumor stem cells and the normal origin cells to narrow down tumor-initiating or tumor-progressing cues
3. Effect of tumor microenvironment on high-grade astrocytomas
4. Underlying molecular mechanism of above mentioned phenomena
5. Performing translational studies for high-grade astrocytomas

Techniques:

• Animals: generation and maintenance of transgenic, knock-in or knock-out mouse lines, small animal surgery, genotyping
• Cell biology: neural or cancer stem cell culture, stem cell assays, viral transduction, immunohistochemistry; immunoprecipitation; mammalian cell transfection; RNA interference
• Imaging: fluorescence and phase contrast confocal microscopy of live and fixed cells; live-animal imaging techniques
• Molecular biology: cloning for transgenic mice, viral vectors
  Genomics: micro-array and data mining analysis