Hu Jun

Biography

Hu obtained PhD in Pharmacology of Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University in 2009, and visited the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences Division in 2011 as a visiting scholar. During the visit, he studied the interaction of oncolytic virus with the host cell and the molecular mechanisms of how virus affect on host cell gene expression and regulation in Kovler Viral Oncology Laboratories with Bernard Royzmann, a academician of U.S. Academy of Sciences. In recent years, Hu has made some major breakthrough in the development and application of oncolytic virus for anti-cancer therapy. Hu discovered a kind of alphavirus, which had been firstly isolated in China, has efficient targetedly oncolytic activity, and further studied the molecular mechanisms underlying them. It was observed that the cellular Zinc finger antiviral protein 1 (ZAP1), a potent antiviral host defense protein limit M1 replication and found that ZAP1 expression deficiency endues M1 an efficient selectively oncolytic activity on human cancer cells. Further, it was also found that ER stress induced apoptosis can be strengthened by cAMP/Epac1 activation in refractory cancer cells to M1 mediated virotherapy. Now, Hu is trying to developing M1 virus into an candidate prototype of oncolytic virus to help the cancer patients in the future. Over the past decade, Hu has engaged in undergraduate and graduate teaching in Medical Microbiology, and accumulated rich experience in teaching, involved in the preparation of several "Medical Microbiology" textbooks including the latest version of the Higher Education Press, and the first version of People's Military Medical Press.

Research Interest

medical research involving microbiology, virology, tumor pathology, anticancer pharmacology,