DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED BIOLOGY & CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY 34 Email vincent.keng@polyu.edu.hk Qualification BAppSc (Hons) (Curtin University) MSc (University of Western Australia) PhD (Fukui Medical University) ORCID ID 0000-0003-3473-0653 Dr KENG Wee-keong Vincent Associate Professor Director of Centralised Animal Facilities Research Overview and Representative Publications Using cutting edge gene editing tools, our research group focuses on elucidating the genetic mechanisms of various types of human cancers. The information obtained will translate to better disease prevention, diagnosis and establishing effective therapeutic regimes. 1. Liver cancer gene discovery – Recapitulated human liver cancer using a mouse model and identified many candidate liver cancer genes using transposable elements as a forward genetic tool – Identified many candidate genes that contribute to the gender bias occurrences of human liver cancer – Established many pre-clinical mouse models of liver cancer – NRAS, hepatitis B viral (HBx), EGFR and CTNNB1 • Gender bias genes involved in liver cancer – Keng et al., J. Hepatol. 2012 & Keng et al., Hepatology 2013 • Established pre-clinical mouse models of liver cancer – Wangensteen et al., Hepatology 2008; Keng et al., Hepatology 2011 & Keng et al., Hepatology 2013 • Mouse model for liver cancer – Keng et al., Nat. Biotech. 2009 2. Role of transcriptional repressors in liver cancer There is increasing evidence that transcriptional repressors play crucial roles in tumorigenesis, recurrence and drugresistance in many cancers. Our research group is focused on elucidating the role of zinc finger and BTB domain containing 20 (ZBTB20) in liver cancer. ZBTB20 can regulate WNT/CTNNB1 signalling pathway via the suppression of PPARG. However, the commonly used AFP biomarker is not effective in early diagnosis of HCC. Interestingly, higher expression of ZBTB20 was detected at very early stages of HCC while significant changes in AFP was only detected at very advanced HCC stage. Based on these findings, ZBTB20 could be further evaluated as a potential marker for the early diagnosis of HCC. • To et al., JHEP Rep. 2021 [2021 IF: 9.917] Patent • Patent application no. PCT/CN2022/070120
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