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Zhixian Yu

ZhixianGraduate Student: Genetics and Molecular Biology (2011-2016)

Contact Info: zyu [at] email.unc.edu

Education: Nankai University, Tianjin, China – B.S. in Biology, 2011

Research: My research focuses on tumor angiogenesis. Tumor endothelial cells (ECs) are originally recruited from normal tissues, so they were considered genetically normal and stable. However, this paradigm was recently challenged by evidence that tumor ECs have centrosome over-duplication (>2 centrosomes) and aneuploidy, a phenotype usually associated with genomic instability common to genuine tumor cells. Initiating events leading to centrosome over-duplication in tumor ECs are incompletely understood. I am working to understand how tumor ECs acquire high levels of centrosome over-duplication.