Ju Dong Yang MD, MS
Medical Director, Liver Cancer Program, Karsh Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CaliforniaThe research program of Ju Dong Yang, MD, has been focused on clinical and translational research of liver cancer. Dr. Yang conducted population-based cohort studies to describe recent trends in liver cancer epidemiology in the United States. He published outcome research papers in liver cancer. Dr. Yang has also conducted modeling studies and proposed a survival prediction model in liver cancer patients. He has also conducted a multistate Markov model study and investigated the impact of liver cancer surveillance on overall survival in patients with cirrhosis. In addition, Dr. Yang has been interested in liver cancer health disparities research from a global perspective. His research highlighted that Africans have a very early onset of HCC with extremely poor survival. Finally, Dr. Yang has been interested in liver cancer biomarker research. He and his colleagues have reported that circulating tumor cells (CTC) are detectable in liver cancer patients and are independent predictors of patient survival. Our more recent study indicated that circulating cell-free tumor DNA mutation and methylation and extracellular vesicles are promising diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers in liver cancer. Dr Yang`s research is currently being funded by NIH/NCI, DoD and the American College of Gastroenterology.