Dr. Yong Lu joined Houston Methodist Academic Institute in November 2021. He is an awardee of the 2021 Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas Rising Stars program that recruits early-stage investigators who have demonstrated the promise for continued and enhanced contributions to the field of cancer research.

Prior to joining Houston Methodist, he was a co-leader of Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center for Signaling and Biotechnology (SBT) program. During 2019-2021, he was a member of NCI’s cell-based immunotherapy network to: (A) provide NCI with advice on the research gaps in cancer adoptive cell therapy; (B) advise the NCI on future directions of cancer adoptive cell therapy. Dr. Lu’s work focuses on translational T cell-based adoptive cell immunotherapy, targeting lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and other cancers.

Since 2020, Dr. Lu has been awarded, as the PI, 4 R01s from NCI, 1 ACS research scholar grant, 3 cancer foundation grants, and numerous intramural and industry grants. In addition to the CPRIT Rising Star award, Dr. Lu was the winner of New Drug Development Global Campaign in 2019 held by Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd.

Recent representative corresponding-authored publications include: Briefings in Bioinformatics 2022 (PMID: 35037026), Cancer Cell 2022 (PMID: 34678150); Nature Biomedical Engineering 2021 (PMID: 34725506); Nature Comm 2019 (PMID: 30914642); Cancer Cell 2018 (PMID: 29894691); Nature Comm 2016 (PMID: 27492902).

• Research concerns why adoptive cell therapies, the type of  immunotherapy in which tumor-specific T cells (e.g. CAR-T cells) are given to a patient to help the body fight cancer, aren't effective against solid tumors like they are against leukemias and lymphomas.
• Overcome resistance of CAR-T cell therapy in multiple myeloma.
• The new tumor-specific Th9 cell-paradigm to eradicate advanced human tumors.