Xiaohong Rose Yang

Xiaohong Rose Yang is an American biomedical scientist researching the genetics of dysplastic nevus syndrome and chordoma, and etiologic heterogeneity of breast cancer. She is a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Yang leads breast cancer studies in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.

Education Yang received a Ph.D. in physiology at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in 1999. She completed a M.P.H. in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2003. Yang joined the genetic epidemiology branch (GEB) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 2000 as a postdoctoral fellow.

Career Yang became a tenure-track investigator at the NCI in 2006, and was appointed senior investigator upon receiving NIH scientific tenure in 2014. , she is a senior investigator. Yang serves on the editorial board for Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, and is an adjunct associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include the genetics of dysplastic nevi syndrome and chordoma, and etiologic heterogeneity of breast cancer.

Yang uses genomic technologies and statistical approaches to evaluate copy number and exome sequencing variants, as well as mRNA expression, miRNA expression, DNA methylation, chromatin modification, and telomere length in disease susceptibility. Yang and her colleagues identified a rare inherited mutation in a gene involved in maintaining telomere stability in melanoma families, further supporting a role for abnormal telomeres in the development of melanoma.

In her investigation of etiologic heterogeneity of breast cancer, Yang characterizes the molecular signature of tumors using tissue microarray and integrated tumor profiling analyses to identify risk factors for specific cancer subtypes. She leads breast cancer studies in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Malaysia to identify distinct molecular alterations in tumors and adjacent normal tissues among Asian women, and to examine the associations of these molecular changes with genetic and environmental risk factors, breast tissue composition and density, and breast cancer subtypes.

Awards and honors Yang received NCI Director's Intramural Innovation Awards in 2007 and 2009.

Selected works