Institutional Profile: Pharmacogenomic research in R Stephanie Huang Laboratory

The Huang Lab was established in 2009 at the University of Chicago and has since been active in conducting pharmacogenomic research. Our laboratory's main research focus is translational pharmacogenomics with a particular interest in the pharmacogenomics of anticancer agents. By systematically evaluating the human genome and its relationships to drug response and toxicity, our goal is to develop clinically useful models that predict risk for adverse drug reactions and nonresponse prior to administration of chemotherapy. Specifically, the theme of our research evolved around the idea of cell-based pharmacogenomics, which utilizes in vitro models for biomarker discovery and prediction-model construction, followed by in vivo validation. We routinely use cell lines (derived from healthy and diseased individuals as well as commercially available cancer cell lines) and clinical samples to discover and functionally characterize genetic variation and gene, miRNA, and long noncoding RNA expression for their roles in drug sensitivity.