Ken Lau

Eunyoung Choi and Ken Lau receive funding for novel cancer research, which may ultimately result in cancer detection and treatment options for patients. The fund supports early-stage, high-risk high-reward research projects and honor Cohen’s seminal discoveries, which led to the invention of many anticancer drugs used today. Read More

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. Ken Lau and Jeffrey Spraggins are creating the first spatially mapped atlas characterizing the progression trajectories of early-onset colorectal cancer versus average-onset CRC as they transition from precancerous lesions to malignant cancers. Read More

Mirazul Islam, a graduate student in the lab of Professor Ken Lau, has developed a molecular clock that records the timing of cellular events at a single-cell resolution. Read More

Coffey and Lau plan to uncover the mechanistic underpinnings of supermeres in the tumor microenvironment, look for other immune exclusion biomarkers, and evaluate the efficacy of immunotherapy when immune exclusion proteins are targeted. Read More

Ken Lau, professor of cell and developmental biology, and colleagues have laid out the principles governing the biology of early, precancerous lesions, which are different from the principles that govern cancers. Their authoritative perspective was published in Cancer Discovery in April 2024. Read More

Second only to lung cancer, colorectal cancer is the nation’s leading cancer killer — accounting for more than 52,000 deaths in the United States each year. Colorectal cancers are divided into two main groups, based on microsatellites, or repeat sections, in their DNA. Read More

Ken Lau, professor of cell and developmental biology, will receive a one-year research award from the Stanley Cohen Innovation Fund. This work will propel Vanderbilt forward as a leader in the field by leveraging novel technology to develop customized sequencing-based assays of cell-associated components at the single-cell resolution. Read More

By Selene Colon The School of Medicine Basic Sciences would like to recognize our faculty for pursuing high-impact research that leads to national recognition of Vanderbilt’s research excellence. High-impact science is often identified by the number of citations related papers receive, but highly cited papers are not always in premier… Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center has received a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study precancerous lesions and early cancers in the colon, with the goal of developing new ways to prevent colorectal cancer, the nation’s second leading cancer killer. Robert Coffey, MD, Martha Shrubsole, PhD, and Ken… Read More

by Tom Wilemon A team of Vanderbilt researchers has revealed some of the mechanisms by which polyps develop into colorectal cancer, setting the framework for improved surveillance for the cancer utilizing precision medicine. Their study, published Dec. 14 in Cell, describes findings from a single-cell transcriptomic and imaging atlas… Read More