The Fan Laboratory

The Fan Laboratory investigates the molecular mechanisms governing cancer progression and uncover fundamental survival pathways in cancer. We employ an integrative strategy combining functional genomics, bioinformatics, multi-omics, and chemical biology to dissect how cancer cells adapt to targeted therapies and develop new therapeutic strategies.

Our work focuses on three distinct but interconnected areas of translational biology:

  • The Interface of rRNA Synthesis and Splicing
  • Ribosomal Heterogeneity
  • Translational Fitness and Resistance
Publications
  1. Fan W, Liu H, Stachelek GC, Begum A, Davis CE, Dorado TE, Ernst G, Reinhold WC, Ozbek B, Zheng Q, De Marzo AM, Rajeshkumar NV, Barrow JC, Laiho M#. Ribosomal RNA transcription regulates splicing through ribosomal protein RPL22. Cell Chemical Biology. 2025-06. PMID: 40553690 (Cover article, independent preview by Dr. Omar Abdel-Wahab - PMID: 40680725)

  2. Fan W, Eklund E, Sherman RM, Liu H, Pitts S, Ford B, Rajeshkumar NV, Laiho M#. Widespread genetic heterogeneity of human ribosomal RNA genes. RNA. 2022 Apr;28(4):478–492. PMCID: PMC8925967 (Article)

  3. Xie J*, Wang Z*, Fan W*, Liu Y, Liu F, Wan X, Liu M, Wang X, Zeng D, Wang Y, He B, Yan M, Zhang Z, Zhang M, Hou Z, Wang C, Kang Z, Fang W, Zhang L, W.-F. Lam E, Guo X, Yan J, Zeng Y, Chen M, Liu Q#. Targeting cancer cell plasticity by HDAC inhibition to reverse EBV-induced dedifferentiation in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Signal Transduct Target Ther. 2021 Sep 4;6(1):333. PMID: 34482361 (Article)

  4. Pitts S, Liu H, Ibrahim A, Garg A, Felgueira CM, Begum A, Fan W, Teh S, Low JY, Ford B, Schneider DA, Hay R, Laiho M#. Identification of an E3 ligase that targets the catalytic subunit of RNA Polymerase I upon transcription stress. J Biol Chem. 2022 Dec;298(12):102690. PMCID: PMC9727647 (Article)

  5. Peng F*, Wang JH*, Fan WJ*, Meng YT, Li MM, Li TT, Cui B, Wang HF, Zhao Y, An F, Guo T, Liu XF, Zhang L, Lv L, Lv DK, Xu LZ, Xie JJ, Lin WX, Lam EWF, Xu J, Liu Q#. Glycolysis gatekeeper PDK1 reprograms breast cancer stem cells under hypoxia. Oncogene. 2018 Feb 22;37(8):1119. PMCID: PMC5851083 (Article)

  6. Xia JL*, Fan WJ*, Zheng FM, Zhang WW, Xie JJ, Yang MY, Kamran M, Wang P, Teng HM, Wang CL, Liu Q#. Inhibition of AURKA kinase activity suppresses collective invasion in a microfluidic cell culture platform. Sci Rep. 2017 Jun 7;7(1):2973. PMCID: PMC5462816 (Article)

  7. Fan W, Xie J, Xia J, Zhang Y, Yang M, Wang H, Pan Y, Zhang M, Han B, Wu B, Hou Z, Liang D, Wang C, Xu J, Song L, Liu Q#. RUVBL1-ITFG1 interaction is required for collective invasion in breast cancer. Biochim Biophys Acta Gen Subj. 2017 Jul;1861(7):1788–1800. PMID: 28341484 (Article)

* Co-first authors, # corresponding authors

Full list in Google Scholar

Team

"We are hiring PhD students and postdocs!"

Wenjun Fan
Wenjun Fan
Principal Investigator
Contact us

Contact us

Wenjun Fan, PhD
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Maryland School of Medicine
108 N. Greene St., Baltimore MD 21201
✉️ Email: Wenjun.Fan@som.umaryland.edu

Department website: https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/biochemistry/

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