Research Focus

Dr. Yu is a molecular epidemiologist, and his research focuses on gene-environment interaction in cancer development and molecular changes in tumor progression and disease prognosis. Being trained both in population science and laboratory research, Dr. Yu has extensive experience in conducting epidemiological studies and clinical investigations. He has completed numerous research projects focusing on a number of cancer sites, including the breast, ovary, endometrium, liver, lung, pancreas and prostate. His research covers a wide range of topics, including dietary habit, nutrient intake, physical activity, genetic susceptibility, sex steroid hormones, mitogenic growth factors, gene-environment interaction, genotype-phenotype interplay, lifestyle influences on epigenetic regulation, and biomarkers for disease prognosis and treatment response. Recently, Dr. Yu's research addresses changes in DNA methylation in relation to tumor progression and their clinical applications. He has investigated DNA methylation in tumor suppressor genes and DNA repair genes, methylator phenotype in tumor progression, methylation pattern in regulation of alternative expression in multiple promoters, tumorigenic effects of microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, and impacts of physical activity and obesity on epigenetic regulation. He has been involved in several NIH-funded clinical and epidemiological research projects to study molecular and genetic factors in association with cancer risk and tumor progression, including genome-wide association studies. Currently, he is a principal investigator of population-cased case-control studies of hepatocellular carcinoma and endometrial cancer. He also conducts two clinical studies to investigate genetic and molecular markers in relation to clinical and pathological features of breast and ovarian cancers as well as survival outcomes of patients diagnosed with these cancers.