Chengkai Dai
Investigator
Center for Cancer Research
National Cancer Institute
United States of America
Biography
Dr. Dai received his medical and M.S. degrees from Tianjin Medical University, China. As a graduate student, he used mouse models to study gliomagenesis with Dr. Eric Holland at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. After earning his Ph.D. degree from The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston in 2003, he worked with Dr. Susan Lindquist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Boston to study the role of the proteotoxic stress response in tumorigenesis. In 2009, he joined The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in May 2016. In October 2016, he joined the Mouse Cancer Genetics Program (MCGP) as an Earl Stadtman Investigator. Dr. Dai received a Children’s Tumor Foundation Young Investigator Award in 2006, an Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award in 2009, and a NIH Director’s New Innovator Award in 2010.
Research Interest
proteomic instability of cancer, the proteotoxic stress response, genetically engineered mouse models (GEMM) of cancer
Publications
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Dai S, Tang Z, Cao J, Zhou W, Li H, Sampson S, Dai C. Suppression of the HSF1â€mediated proteotoxic stress response by the metabolic stress sensor AMPK. The EMBO journal. 2015 Feb 3;34(3):275-93.
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Tang Z, Dai S, He Y, Doty RA, Shultz LD, Sampson SB, Dai C. MEK guards proteome stability and inhibits tumor-suppressive amyloidogenesis via HSF1. Cell. 2015 Feb 12;160(4):729-44.
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Su KH, Cao J, Tang Z, Dai S, He Y, Sampson SB, Benjamin IJ, Dai C. HSF1 critically attunes proteotoxic-stress sensing by mTORC1 to combat stress and promote growth. Nature cell biology. 2016 May;18(5):527.
