Keith Wu

Oncology Discovery Research Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC)/Innovative multi-specific biologics discovery and development Discovery lead Strong partner in matrix team

• Key personnel of multidisciplinary projects, led research laboratory (800+ sqft) operation to provide efficient research environment to lab members, mentored and trained research scientists, technicians and PhD students per the institution and lab core values • Accomplished proof-of-concept studies that revealed a synthetic lethality/cancer dependency mechanism linking mitochondrial Hsp70 mortalin and oncogenic KRAS/BRAF signaling in cancer, defined mortalin as a therapeutic target selective to KRAS/BRAF-mutant tumors, and resulted to 3 first-authored research articles in high impact journals, 1 review article with senior authorship, 2+ co-authored research articles, and 5+ manuscripts in the pipeline • Achieved suppression of melanoma, pancreatic and colon cancer, and by gene silencing and pharmacological approaches (Hsp70 inhibitor project collaborated with Dr. Jason Gestwicki, UCSF) in cell culture, BRAF inhibitor resistant cancer cells, and in vivo mouse xenograft models, which is funded by NCI with $250K+ yearly budget • Delivered mechanism of action studies for cell death-promoting mitochondrial permeability perturbation using mass spectrometry-based proteome analysis of the mortalin-interacting proteins (collaborated with Dr. Rebekah Gundry, Physiology, UNMC), IPA and STRING pathway/network analyses, multi-color flowcytometry, and identification of metabolic pathway alternations in cancer cells using Seahorse, targeted metabolomics mass spectrometry, Cytoscape/Metscape, Metaboanalyst pathway analysis • Evaluated combination therapy of mitochondria targeting compounds and selective target inhibitor/precision medicine using patient-derived pancreatic cancer cells, thyroid cancer cells, synergy calculation, cancer organoids, as translational study to prepare clinical trials, collaborated with Dr. Susan Tsai (Surgery, MCW), with $100K+ yearly budget • Served as expert reviewer for external grant, review editor for 4 international peer-reviewed journals

• Designed and executed target discovery and validation research projects to study the MEK/ERK signaling in RAS/RAF-driven cancers, which has direct implication to melanoma and pancreatic cancers, using tandem affinity purification, SILAC, orbitrap mass spectrometry, genetic and molecular approaches • Delivered mechanistic studies of oncogene-induced senescence, chaperone/protein degradation functions of mortalin/HSPA9 on MEK1/2 and PP1alpha, cell cycle and transcriptional regulations of CDKI p21CIP1 in cancer cells, constitutively active ERK kinase activity in growth arrest and neuronal differentiation, feedback mechanism of ERK1/2 signaling • Productive team collaboration with clinician, medicinal chemist, mass spectrometry expert, statistician, and pathologist as demonstrated by publishing 3 first-authored and 5 co-authored peer-reviewed research articles, 1 first-authored reviewed article, securing $1.8M+ NCI research funding, obtaining internal grant for proteomics project • Promoted professional advocacy and diversity via serving the Postdoctoral Advisory Committee

Postdoctoral Industry Consultant (PICO)

National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) summer cohort at University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee site.

• Provided research and analysis in scientific and clinical literatures on transplantation-associated therapy. • Analyzed biological and biochemical aspects, and methodologies of efficacy assessments for a novel biotherapeutics that is being evaluated in phase clinical trials

• Discovered a unique growth inhibitory activity of oleanolic acid to Ras-transformed and human cancer cells, worked with medicinal and analytical chemists to screen bioactive compounds • Developed a platform integrating cell-based proliferation and co-culture assay, HPLC and mass spectrometry chemical fingerprinting, and DNA fingerprinting, to assess the anticancer properties and chemical profile of medicinal herbal • Interrogated phosphoproteome of drug-treated Ras-transformed cells using IMAC, SILAC, LC-MS/MS • Published 2 first-authored and 2 co-authored peer-reviewed research articles

Assisted teaching in Molecular Biology Laboratory and Microbiology and Immunology Laboratory for undergraduate courses

• Elucidated the pharmacological properties and molecular mechanisms of angiogenesis and neuronal differentiation modulating, natural product-derived small molecule compounds resulting 1 first-authored and 1 co-authored peer-reviewed research articles • Optimized 2D-gel electrophoresis to produce high resolution gel images, in-gel tryptic digestion for MALDI-ToF mass spectrometry and peptide mass fingerprinting