October 2023
September 2023
Welcome to Kim, Kaitlyn and Michelle for joining the lab this fall!
Kim and Kaitlyn are first-year graduate students in the CAMB/CB program, and will join us for their rotations starting this fall. Michelle is an undergraduate at Penn and will start working as a Research Assistant in the lab. Welcome to the family!
August 2023
Hotpot lunch to celebrate recent awards, send off high-school student Samantha Bramen, and welcome our newest Ph.D. Arushi Sahay!
July 2023
Congratulations to Liling on receiving a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Scholar Award to support our lab’s research on epigenetics in AML! Learn more here
July 2023
Congratulations to postdoc Yiman Liu on receiving a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Career Development Program Special Fellow Award to support her research on epigenetic mechanism in AML! Learn more here
July 2023
Congratulations to graduate student Kaeli Mathias on receiving a NIH F31 pre-doctoral fellowship to support her thesis on oncogenic transcriptional hubs!
June 2023
Wan lab at the annual departmental retreat in Skytop, PA
Yiman, Qinglan, and Krista did a great job presenting their research at the retreat. We also had fun for a hike leading to a secret waterfall!
May 2023
It’s a boy! Congrats to Lele and Renxu on the arrival of their son Marcus!
May 2023
Congratulations to our newest Ph.D. candidate Chujie on passing prelim exam with flying colors!
May 2023
Congratulations to undergrad Sylvia on graduation plus winning a Rose Award for her outstanding thesis research!
January 2023
The Wan Lab has a great turnout at the annual Penn Epigenetics Institute Retreat at Citizens Bank Park.
January 2023
Welcome our new rotation student Arushi!
December 2022
Farewell party for our fantastic Master Student Lingbo. You’ve mastered it! Our best wishes to you as you start a new chapter of your career!
December 2022
Birthday Celebration, Lab Holiday Party, and Secret Santa
November 2022
Our paper describing how cancer mutations in the chromatin reader ENL trigger pathogenic condensates on chromatin is published in ! Congrats to all who have contributed to this study!
October 2022
Lab outing and Halloween Science Dress-up!
September 2022
Our paper on targeting the histone acyl-reader ENL in AML is published in Cancer Discovery! Congrats to all who have contributed to this study, including our wonderful collaborators in the Bernt lab.
September 2022
Jill and Alexis joining the lab for their rotations. Welcome!
August 2022
Congratulations to the newly engaged: Krista&Kyle and Ghita&Chujie!
June 2022
Department of Cancer Biology Retreat, Mohonk, NY
Congratulations to Yiman, Lele, Kaeli, and Krista on the fantastic platform and poster presentations!
May 2022
Kaeli and Krista become Ph.D. candidates! Congratulations!
June 2022
Our lab receives an ASH Scholar Award to study epigenetic crosstalk in AML
March 2022
Chujie joins the lab for his thesis! Welcome on board!
December 2021
Liling, along with 11 early-career investigators, share their thoughts on challenges and opportunities in a 2021 Viewpoint article by Nature Cancer
December 2021
Happy Holidays and Birthdays!
We had so much fun decorating ourselves with favorite histone marks, celebrating birthdays, and ending the Year of 2021 with Secret Santa gift exchange and a dinner night out! 2022, we are ready!
December 2021
Our lab receives V Scholar Grant
The V Foundation will provide funding to support our work in targeting the reading of histone acylation for acute leukemia therapy. Learn more here
Oct 2021
Wan and Mir labs celebrated the New Innovator Awards
Congratulations to Liling and Mustafa on receiving the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. It was fun to celebrate together!
Oct 2021
NIH Director’s New Innovator Award
Our lab has received the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award to support our research on transcriptional condensates in cancer. Learn more about our project here
August 2021
We had a fun lab lunch to celebrate all the recent good news in the lab
July 2021
Kaeli awarded the Genetics T32 training grant - Congratulations!
June 2021
Liling named a Pew-Stewart Scholar
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust have selected Liling to join four other researchers in the U.S. as the 2021 class of Pew-Stewart Scholars for Cancer Research. The Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer Research is a national initiative designed to support promising early career scientists whose research will accelerate discovery and advance progress to a cure for cancer. Our lab will receive a four-year grant to investigate how assemblies of proteins come together to regulate the expression of genes and how dysregulation of this process contributes to cancer. Learn more.
June 2021
First in-person lab meeting and lab photo (without a mask)
Thanks to #vaccine, we started the first ever, in person lab meeting since the lab opened its door in 2020. It was lots of fun!
June 2021
Kaeli and Krista join the lab as our first graduate students
We are excited that Krista and Kaeli, Ph.D. candidates from the CAMB and BMB graduate groups, respectively, decided to join the lab for their thesis research. Looking forward to several years of fun and great science together!
June 2021
Sylvia and Chujie join the lab for summer research
Sylvia, an undergrad student, will start her research in the lab starting this summer. Chujie, an incoming Ph.D. student in CAMB program, will conduct his first rotation with our lab in the summer. Welcome!
Jan 2021
Happy New Year, and Welcomes to Krista
Dec 2020
First Lab Secret Santa
Oct 2019
First lab outing!
Sept 2020
New Investigator Grant from Leukemia Research Foundation
We are grateful for the support from the Leukemia Research Foundation. This grant will support our work on targeting chromatin reader proteins in acute leukemias. Learn more.
Sept 2020
Welcomes to Daniel and Kaeli
Warm welcomes to Daniel and Kaeli for joining the lab for their independent study and rotation, respectively.
June 2020
New lab members
Warm welcomes to Yiman, Sai and Julia for joining the lab! We will have fun learning epigenetics in the coming months!
February 2020
Liling named an AACR ‘NextGen Star’
The American Association for Cancer Research has named Liling a “NextGen Star” ahead of its 2020 Annual Meeting in San Diego, April 24 - April 29. The honor provides early career scientists with career development support and increased visibility in the field. Liling will present research from the lab at the annual meeting in a spotlight session. Congrats to Liling and fellow awardees for this honor! Click here for learn more.
January 2020
Liling presented at the Keystone Cancer Epigenetics Conference
The 2020 Keystone Symposia Cancer Epigenetics: New Mechanisms and Therapeutic Opportunities in conjunction with the joint conference, Gene Regulation: From Mechanisms to Disease highlights state-of-the art advances in methods, mechanistic insights, and drug discovery efforts across gene control, chromatin and epigenetic regulation, and human diseases. Liling presented recent findings on how hot-spot mutations in the YEATS domain alter cell fate decision to drive tumorigenesis.
January 2020
The Wan Lab officially opened its door!
December 2019
Our new paper is now online!
Check our latest paper here at Nature. See also here a new coverage from Rockefeller University
October 2019
Our new paper accepted by Nature
Our new paper is now accepted by Nature! In this study, we elucidated how recurrent, hotspot mutations in a chromatin reader protein (ENL) found in human cancer drive premalignant cell fate in the kidney. We uncovered a totally unexpected mechanism by which these mutations confer gain of function in chromatin targeting and gene activation. This is terrific teamwork with many of our wonderful collaborators. Big thanks and congratulations to all who have contributed to this work!
September 2019
Liling named a finalist for the 2019 Blavatnik Regional Award
Liling was named a finalist for the 2019 Blavatnik Regional Award for Young Scientists! The Blavatnik Regional Awards acknowledge and celebrate the excellence of outstanding postdoctoral scientists from institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut working in the three disciplinary categories of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, and Chemistry.
August 2019
Lele Song is joining our team
Lele has accepted the offer to join us as a postdoctoral scientist in Jan 2020. Welcome Lele!
June 2019
12th Annual departmental retreat
Liling joined the departmental retreat and gave a keynote address on her work. It was super fun to get to know all the amazing people in the department and we can’t wait to be part of this community!
May 2019
Liling presented her work at Tsinghua University
Liling was thrilled to be invited back to Tsinghua University (where she did her undergrad studies) and presented her work there. It was also great to visit our long-time collaborator Haitao Li and his group there.