(Press-News.org)
Molecular biologist Yali Dou, PhD, holder of the Marion and Harry Keiper Chair in Cancer Research and professor of medicine and cancer biology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is one of seven USC faculty members in the 2025 cohort of new fellows.
The AAAS is the world’s oldest and largest general science organization and the publisher of Science, a top peer-reviewed academic journal. Election as a fellow is a lifetime honor — one of the AAAS’s highest — signaling extraordinary achievement in the advancement or application of science.
Dou, the associate director for basic research at USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, is a recognized leader in the study of epigenetics, the mechanisms that enable the singular instructions in DNA to be expressed as myriad cell and tissue types. She has made major contributions to the fundamental understanding of a family of enzymes that plays a vital role in fetal development by altering the coiled chromatin, which packages DNA to fit in the chromosomes of a cell’s nucleus, so that genes are activated. Because mutations of the founding member of this family of enzymes can also spur leukemia, they are known as mixed-lineage leukemia proteins, or MLL. MLL enzymes are among the most frequently mutated genes in cancer.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) have continuously funded Dou’s research since 2009 and her influential studies have been highly cited in peer-reviewed biomedical literature.
Looking at the accomplishments of other new AAAS fellows, she notes that she is in good company.
“A lot of great scientists are being recognized this way,” said Dou, who is also co-director of the Ph.D. Program in Molecular Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine. “It’s an honor to be part of the prestigious group. Now more than ever, it is important to recognize the contributions of science and scientists to our society.”
She is quick to share the credit for the advances that have grown out of her investigations.
“I want to acknowledge all of the people in my lab who have contributed so much to my career,” Dou said. “They’re actually the ones that carry out the work, so I share this honor with them.”
Next to nothing was known about MLL enzymes when she began exploring their structure and function early in her career. Dou has broken down the complex of MLL1, the founding member of that family, to its composite pieces and rebuilt it. She has identified the molecular basis to make it work and found a way to block its activity. From the start, curiosity was her guide.
“What really drives me is the potential to identify something new,” Dou said. “Every time we answer an old question, new questions open up. There’s still a lot for us to understand about how this enzyme works.”
While rearrangement in the MLL1 gene is associated with an aggressive form of childhood leukemia, the enzyme is also amplified or overexpressed in diseases such as breast cancer and liver cancer. Moving from discovery to application, Dou has led the development of potential cancer treatments that take MLL1 as their target.
“We did systematic work from the beginning,” she said. “It went from purifying the protein complex to identifying its regulator, to developing a probe that inhibits its enzymatic activity. With that probe, we can ask important questions that we otherwise couldn’t. Eventually, we hope that the drugs we develop targeting MLL will provide new treatment options for cancer patients.”
Her prolific collaborations with other scientists have led Dou’s investigations into numerous other fields of study such as exploring MLL’s role in the heart and brain. With advances in big data and computing power, she plans to branch out further in the years ahead.
“A great deal of groundbreaking science emerges at the intersection of disciplines, and when the opportunity arises to explore uncharted territory, I embrace a curious and exploratory mindset,” she said. “Going forward, our goal is not merely to understand a single gene or process but to expand our research scope for a more holistic perspective that ultimately advances our understanding of biology and translates it to benefit patients.”
Dou has been recognized with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Scholar Award, Stand Up to Cancer’s Innovative Research Grant, the American Cancer Society’s Research Scholars Grant and the American Association for Cancer Research’s Getrude B. Elion Cancer Research Award. She currently serves as chair of the NIH’s Cancer Genetics Study Section.
Before joining the Keck School of Medicine, Dou was a faculty member at the University of Michigan. She earned her PhD from the University of Rochester and completed her postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University.
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