The human microbiome is an emerging concept with respect to the overall microbes associated with human beings, which involves bacteria, fungi, archaea, parasites, and viruses. Accumulating evidence has shown that the human microbiome plays significant roles in both health and disease states. Recent research advances have illustrated that the microbiome affects diseases (such as obesity, diabetes, neurodegenerative disease, etc) through diverse mechanisms. However, the specific impacts of microbiome on human cancer development and therapies still remain elusive. Previous studies have suggested the roles of microbiota (including both intratumoral and gut microbiome) are essential in cancer diagnosis, carcinogenesis, and therapeutics. Well-established examples include cancer development promoted by oncoviruses or oncogenic metabolites biosynthesized by the human microbiome (e.g., colibactin and indolimines).
This Article Collection aims to provide a broad survey of the most recent advances in the human microbiome and cancer research. Original Research Papers, Reviews, Perspectives, and Bedside-to-Bench Reports focused on basic or translational studies that discuss the pathophysiological impacts of human microbiome in cancer diagnosis, development, and treatment (especially immuno-oncology) are welcome.
Dr. Qingfei Zheng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and Center for Cancer Metabolism at The Ohio State University (OSU). He obtained his B.S. from Tsinghua University in 2012, majoring in chemical biology and undergoing research training in organic chemistry, epigenetics, and neurobiology. Qingfei then earned his Ph.D. at Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he elucidated the biochemical and genetic bases of microbial metabolite biosynthesis for drug development via synthetic biology approaches. Qingfei joined the Chemical Biology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2017 and studied non-canonical histone post-translational modifications induced by reactive metabolites or toxins as a new link between metabolic disorders, environmental stress and epigenetic regulation. Qingfei aspires to tackle chemical and biological problems by simultaneously developing new chemical tools to study complex biological mechanisms and engineering novel biological systems to produce synthetically inaccessible chemicals. To achieve these scientific goals, Qingfei joined OSU as an Assistant Professor in August, 2021. Currently, his lab is trying to apply chemical and synthetic biology approaches towards studying cancer metabolism, epigenetics, and tumor microbiome for the development of new personalized cancer therapies.
https://cancer.osu.edu/for-cancer-researchers/research/research-labs/zheng-lab
https://cancer.osu.edu/find-a-researcher/search-researcher-directory/qingfei-zheng
