Grad students from the Liu Lab presented their research at the 2019 Lurie Cancer Center Symposium and Scientific Poster Session. Lab member Rokana Taftaf won the Cancer Biology Cluster Travel Award for her poster on “The Role of ICAM1 in Breast Cancer Stemness and Metastasis.” Amazing work, Rokana!
The Liu Lab took to Grant Park in Chicago to participate in the Lurie Cancer Center’s Survivors’ Celebration Walk and 5K along with over 3,000 other survivors, supporters, researchers, friends, and family. The event raised nearly $370,000 for cancer research and was a great way to bring the greater community together for a cause near and dear to everyone’s heart.
This year, the Department of Pharmacology held their annual retreat on May 2 at the 1 North Michigan Conference Center in Chicago, Illinois. The retreat included many great talks by students, post-docs, and faculty from across the Pharmacology department, including two talks by our very own Valery Adorno-Cruz and Rokana Taftaf! Many members of the Liu Lab also presented posters at the event. And after a day of serious science, the lab participated in Lab Olympics, competing in events such as pipette shooting, pipette box filling, eppendorf ring toss, and pipette box stacking!
The Liu Lab celebrated the Chinese New Year of the Pig with our second annual dumpling making competition. Members of the Liu Lab, the Pharmacology Department, family, and friends came together to make a total of 454 dumplings! Three teams participated in three separate competitions: dumpling making, calligraphy, and ping-pong. The Yellow team dominated with 182 dumplings. The Green team proved their hand at calligraphy, and the red team took home the ping-pong trophy. But ultimately, everyone won as we all enjoyed a delicious meal and good fun!
The Liu Lab celebrated the holidays this year with a delicious lab lunch at Indian Garden restaurant. All lab members and our support staff enjoyed a chilly Chicago December afternoon with good food and good company. The holiday celebrations continued with the Department of Pharmacology sponsored holiday party. This year’s theme was Superheros!
Congratulations Liu Cluster Team, Especially Xia!! Great team work and tremendous efforts of Xia, Rokana, Madoka, Dr. Liu and all other team members who contributed to make it possible to publish our paper in this esteemed Journal. This achievement has provided us great inspiration to continue doing research work to achieve our ultimate goal of finding best possible cure for Breast cancer patients.
Homophilic CD44 interactions mediate tumor cell aggregation and polyclonal metastasis in patient-derived breast cancer models
Xia Liu, Rokana Taftaf, Madoka Kawaguchi, Ya-Fang Chang, Wenjing Chen, David Entenberg, Youbin Zhang, Lorenzo Gerratana, Simo Huang, Dhwani Patel, Elizabeth Tsui, Valery Adorno-Cruz, Steven Chirieleison, Yue Cao, Allison Harney, Shivani Patel, Antonia Patsialou, Yang Shen, Stefanie Avril, Hannah Gilmore, Justin Lathia, Derek Abbott, Massimo Cristofanilli, John Condeelis, Huiping Liu
10.1158/2159-8290.CD-18-0065
Link: http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2018/10/18/2159-8290.CD-18-0065
NU News Story: https://news.feinberg.northwestern.edu/2018/10/new-insights-into-cancer-metastasis/
It is our pleasure to announce that our very talented lab member Xia Liu won Komen CCR award. We are very proud of you, Xia! It’s a time to celebrate your hard work!
Congratulations to Xia, Andrew, Wenjing!!
“ Organotropism: new insights into molecular mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis”
Congratulations Rokana!
Congratulations Erika!
Congratulations Valery!
Congratulations to both Erika and Andrew for their review publication in Trends in Cancer Journal, focusing on cancer stem cells as well as challenges and new strategies to prevent them from metastasizing cancer in other organs.
New Opportunities and Challenges to Defeat Cancer Stem Cells. Ramos EK, Hoffmann AD, Gerson SL, Liu H. Trends Cancer. 2017 Nov;3(11):780-796. doi: 10.1016/j.trecan.2017.08.007. Epub 2017 Sep 21. PMID: 29120754
