Colorectal cancer may be the cancer most closely linked to diet, and is the second-leading cause of death in developed countries. Studies suggest links between diet and the development of colon cancer, but a Texas researcher wants to dig deeper at the molecular level to find out why.
Jihye Yun was recruited in 2018 to the department of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine from Weill Cornell Medical College, where she was an instructor. She came to Texas with the help of a First-Time Tenure-Track Award from CPRIT.
Read More
Colorectal cancer may be the cancer most closely linked to diet, and is the second-leading cause of death in developed countries. Studies suggest links between diet and the development of colon cancer, but a Texas researcher wants to dig deeper at the molecular level to find out why.
Jihye Yun was recruited in 2018 to the department of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine from Weill Cornell Medical College, where she was an instructor. She came to Texas with the help of a First-Time Tenure-Track Award from CPRIT.
Many studies of the incidence of disease related to diet in human populations have suggested that consuming sugar-sweetened beverages increase both the risk of developing colon cancer and of dying from the disease. Unfortunately, studies like this can’t prove that these beverages cause cancer, only that the two are associated.
And Yun asks, if the relationship is causal, is the resulting obesity the ultimate cause of cancer? Or are the sugar-sweetened beverages themselves implicated, regardless of an individual’s weight?
Yun’s goal is to find out how diet and genes interact to cause cancer by looking at the effects of particular nutrients in model organisms and on organoids—three-dimensional colon-like organs that can be grown in a laboratory.
“We need to better establish the links between nutrition and disease with solid and rigorous research,” Yun says. “I want to do this because it’s really important and relevant, and can be directly transferred to human health.”
When she was a postdoctoral researcher at Weill Cornell, Yun reexamined high-dose Vitamin C to treat colon cancer—an idea promulgated in the 1970s by Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling, and later debunked by a clinical trial. By studying mice, she found that Pauling was actually right; high-dose Vitamin C can actually kill colon cancer cells with a particular mutation. But the key is giving the vitamin to patients intravenously, as Pauling did, not by mouth, as in the subsequent clinical trial.
Her work led to a renewed interest in Vitamin C in the treatment of colon cancer, and to a new clinical trial now underway at Weill Cornell. She hopes her work in Texas will soon benefit patients, too.
Yun was trained as a cancer geneticist but became interested in the relationships between diet, the gut microbiome, and cancer. “CPRIT provided a way for me to do risky but high-reward projects” in a field I wasn’t already an expert in, Yun says. “Other traditional government funding agencies look to see if you have a track record in a particular field. But you don’t need to have a track record to expand a new field; you need potential.”
Yun says Texas researchers are friendly and collegial. “You can’t do scientific research by yourself these days,” she says, “it’s about collaboration.” At Texas Medical Center she has found many people to collaborate with, and says that researchers there are very willing to share information and work together.
Yun received her undergraduate degree in life science from Sogang University, and her master’s degree in biological science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, both in South Korea. She came to the U.S. to earn her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular medicine from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, and then at Weill Cornell, before becoming an instructor there in 2016.
Read Less
