Hao Zhu Lab

Somatic mutations accumulate in “normal” non-cancerous tissues (blood, skin, liver). But why are mutant clones selected? Do they merely proliferate more, selfishly? Or can clones adapt to disease? Could they protect tissues? We shed light on this: authors.elsevier.com/a/1gua9L7PXmc1- 1/10

Molecular insights into early malignant transition of hepatocellular carcinoma dlvr.it/TSW426

Our preprint led by @M_Mesbah_Uddin @ZhiYu_ACGT and with @AlexBickMDPhD describes the germline genetic drivers and phenotypic associations of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential across >1M individuals medrxiv.org/content/10.110… @medrxivpreprint

@CRI_UTSW @WashU congrats Greg on a great thesis! we are going to miss you!

#thesisThursday: Been a week since Greg Mannino from @Zhu_Lab successfully defended! Congrats, Dr. Mannino 😎 and best of luck continuing the #relentlessdiscovery as a postdoc at @WashU.

@naxerova @NatureGenet very excited to dig into this! congrats to your team!

A gene is recurrently mutated in cancer. But do these mutations really cause the disease? Or are they merely selected during normal tissue evolution? Here we use a surprising data type (patient ages!) to try and answer this question. Read new paper out @NatureGenet 👇🏻

This week marks the release of my book Beyond Inheritance 🎉 📖. It tells the stories of patients with mysterious ailments who have been saved by a radical new view of genetics. And how whales can teach us about preserving our DNA as we age. Available now: tinyurl.com/5yjsr97n

Monday-Tuesday May 4-5 2026 Steel Symposium in Developmental Oncology @MSKCancerCenter #MSKKids mskcc.org/research-progr…

Congratulations to the now Twitterless/Xless Ralph DeBerardinis on being elected to @theNASciences!!!

Great accomplishment, @EChenLab, a member of @utswcancer! utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/artic…

ONLINE NOW in @NatMetabolism: McBrayer Lab & first-author @milan95 have discovered cell maturity determines pyrimidine synthesis pathway preference using their new nitrogen metabolism profiling platform, organoid model. Read more ⬇️ cri.utsw.edu/cell-maturity-… #relentlessdiscovery

Cool work from @ChrisAWalsh1 showing enrichment of somatic driver mutations (in TET2, ASXL1, DNMT3A) linked to clonal hematopoiesis in hematopoietic-derived microglia-like brain macrophages in brain samples from pts w Alzheimer’s Disease v controls cell.com/cell/fulltext/… @CellCellPress

🌟From the desk of @SJMorrison_: It's a great day for CRI, which now has 2 @theNASciences members. Congratulations to Ralph DeBerardinis, M.D., Ph.D., and his laboratory on this recognition for the quality and impact of their work! #relentlessdiscovery cri.utsw.edu/deberardinis-n…

Congrats to my friend and colleague, George Daley, for his induction into the National Academy of Sciences.

Congratulations George Q. Daley of @harvardmed, newly inducted #NASmember! #NAS163 #medicine #biology #oncology

We used our HCC biobank to dip our toes into a controversial topic: circadian biology and immune checkpoint blockade 🔗 jitc.bmj.com/content/14/4/e… 🧵A brief thread on the controversies and findings here... @howardli123 @mnakazawa7

Amazing paper showing somatic mutations and massive clonal selection for lymphocytes that drive autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases are varied and individually relatively uncommon but as a group highly prevalent. These cause lots of morbidity to very many people, with huge personal, societal, and economic impact. If these findings are extended to other autoimmune conditions, they will have huge implications for treatment. Lots in this paper - somatic evolution, new tech, old theories, mutations in your favorite genes... The thread is a great TL;DR for the paper. Go deep and read the cited 2007 Goodnow paper (post#6) - amazingly detailed and prescient- from ~20 years ago!

We are starting #AACR26 off strong! 🔬 Don’t miss Gerta Hoxhaj, Ph.D., this Saturday at 3:01 p.m. for an educational session on the metabolic regulation of cancer cell growth. @Gerta_Hoxhaj

Our new work by @shanshanliu1218 and @gadmark addresses a fundamental question: how does ER maintain its unique oxidizing environment, while rest of the cell is reducing? Here, we identify SLC33A1 as the major ER GSSG exporter in mammalian cells. nature.com/articles/s4155…

Ever wonder how toggling protein synthesis impacts cellular identity? Dr. Rashmi Mishra @HsiehLab did and through a clever drug screen discovered that the cap-binding domain of eIF4E regulates lineage fate in prostate cancer. Story hit newsstands today: jci.org/articles/view/…