Overview of Department & Mentor
In the Department of Surgery, surgeons and scientists collaborate on translational research in many surgical fields. Areas of interest and strength include cancer biology, health services research, stem cell biology, and development biology. Many labs in the department are funded by NIH and other federal agencies, and they train many students, postdoctoral fellows, and clinical residents. The Cui Laboratory conducts translational cancer research to decipher biochemical and signaling mechanisms of cancer metastasis and therapeutic resistance. His lab collaborates with many cancer research groups and breast cancer clinician scientists in the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center and Breast Research Program to conduct cutting-edge translational research. Dr. Cui and his collaborators at Cedars-Sinai have co-published many high-impact papers and co-trained many students, postdocs, residents, and fellows. They aim to use the lab findings to identify potential targets for therapeutic interventions of the critical signaling pathways governing breast cancer development and progression. The ultimate goal is to develop effective anticancer therapies and cancer prevention approaches based on these targets.

Role Summary & Objectives
This is a good training opportunity for Dr. Junyuan LYU, who has a MD degree and much experience in patient care and breast cancer clinical studies, to improve skills in lab experiments/techniques, logic thinking, scientific writing, and presentation.  Although he has some experience in basic lab techniques and cancer research, he will be able to learn new, sophisticated methods and techniques in cancer research (e.g. 3D cell culture, protein-protein interaction, gene expression regulation) in Dr. Cui’s lab.  He will be involved in studies on mechanisms for breast cancer resistance to targeted therapy. These studies will provide novel insight into breast cancer progression and will have implications for improving clinical outcome. The research training/activities are expected to help him learn how to design specific aims and experimental approaches to address the main objective of the project. The knowledge and skills he masters in this one year training will build a foundation for him to conduct and guide independent wet lab research to investigate the critical clinical issues in breast cancer treatment. 

Role Activities & Timeline
Dr. Cui’s lab will provide training opportunity for Junyuan LYU to learn common and state-of-the-art techniques in molecular cell biology and to further gain experience and skills in translational breast cancer research. He will participate in breast cancer drug resistance research.
1.    Our lab members will provide guidance and mentoring in his daily research and hands-on training for the first 2 months (months 1-2). After this training period, he is expected to become independent in conducting analysis of DNA and RNA using PCR methods (months 3-5), protein using immunoblotting and immunostaining (months 6-8), and cell functions using proliferation and invasion assays (months 9-11). However, his daily research activities will be closely supervised by postdocs and the mentor in the lab.
2.     He will summarize research results and present data in our weekly lab meetings and monthly breast center research meetings.  He will attend research seminars at Cedars-Sinai.  All the research activities will be on site (Dr. Cui’s lab).
3.    He will meet with the mentor on a weekly basis (30 min). The meeting will discuss research progress and experimental troubleshooting.
4.    He is expected to take all the required training courses at Cedars-Sinai. He will not perform teaching or mentoring work.
5.    He is expected to write a manuscript on his research results by the end of the one year training (months 11-12). 

Required Education & Experience 
•    Must be 18 years of age or older.
•    Must have a HS Diploma or GED.
•    Must reside in the greater Los Angeles area or surrounding cities while conducting all activities related to the intern or visitor appointment.
•    INTERNS: Those participating for academic credit must receive academic credit for the duration of the internship.
•    VISITORS: Must be receiving funding from an eligible sponsoring institution (employer, educator, funder, etc.).
Preferred Education & Experience
Basic knowledge of molecular biology and breast cancer development and metastasis

Visiting Post Doc (unpaid)

Home Dept - Gewertz

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

Academic/Research

Postdoctoral

Full-time

8 hour shift

Day

$0.00 - $0.00

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