Sichun Yang, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Nutrition
School of Medicine
Assistant Professor
Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics
School of Medicine
Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmacology
School of Medicine
Assistant Professor
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
School of Medicine
Member
Molecular Oncology Program
Case Comprehensive Cancer Center

After completing his postdoc training at the University of Chicago in 2010, Dr. Yang has joined CWRU and initiated cross-disciplinary, experimental-computational studies on human Estrogen Receptor alpha (ERα), a key driver of breast cancer. His laboratory has a keen focus on ERα-related biophysics, cancer biology, and drug discovery from the perspectives of both intramolecular domain interaction and its intrinsically disordered region. Equally importantly, another focus is on contributing to the emerging field of integrative biophysics and developing proprietary ERα-specific drug discovery platforms. His research has benefited from close collaboration with laboratories here in Cleveland and other parts of the globe.

Teaching Information

Courses Taught

PHRM 528. Contemporary Approaches to Drug Discovery

Office Hours

By appointment

Research Information

Research Interests

  • Multifaceted integration for estrogen receptor
  • Biophysics of estrogen receptor disorder
  • Targeted disruption of estrogen receptor activation
  • Drugging the undrugged for advanced ER-positive breast cancer

Research Projects

Recent Funding

  • NIH/NIGMS (R01 GM114056), 08/01/15-07/31/25; Role: PI
  • NIH/NCI (R03CA241977), 04/01/20–03/31/22; Role: PI
  • NIH/NCI (R01 CA256161), 04/01/21–03/31/26; Role: PI of subaward
  • Breast Cancer Alliance, 02/01/20–07/31/21; Role: PI

Awards and Honors

Breast Cancer Alliance Award
2020
Breast Cancer Alliance
Biophysical Chemistry Young Investigator Award
2016
Chemical Institute of Canada
Idea Award
2010
Department of Defense

Publications

View Publications

Selected Publications

  1. Huang W, Peng Y, Kiselar J, Zhao X, Albaqami A, Mendez D, Chen Y-H, Chakravarthy S, Gupta S, Ralston C, Kao H-Y, Chance MR, and Yang S "Multidomain architecture of estrogen receptor reveals interfacial cross-talk between its DNA-binding and ligand-binding domains," Nature Communications, 9 (1) 3520, (2018); PMID: 30166540 PMCID: PMC6117352; Press release: EurekAlert, Argonne National lab
  2. Peng Y, Cao S, Kiselar J, Xiao X, Du Z, Hsieh A, Ko S, Chen Y, Agrawal P, Zheng W, Shi W, Jiang W, Yang L, Chance MR, Surewicz WK, Buck M, and Yang S. "A metastable contact and structural disorder in the estrogen receptor transactivation domain," Structure, 27 (2) 229-240, (2019); PMCID: PMC6365180; Featured in a preview by Manalastas and Svergun, Structure, 27 (2) 207-208, (2019)
  3. Huang W, Ravikumar KM, Parisien M, and Yang S. "Theoretical modeling of multiprotein complexes by iSPOT: Integration of small-angle X-ray scattering, hydroxyl radical footprinting, and computational docking," Journal of Structural Biology,196 (3) 340-349 (2016); PMID: 27496803 PMCID: PMC5118146
  4. Yang S* and Bernado P, "Integrative Biophysics: protein interaction and disorder," Journal of Molecular Biology, 432 (9) 2843-2845 (2020) [Editorial overview for the special issue on integrative biophysics]

Education

Doctor of Philosophy
Biophysics
University of California, San Diego
2006

Residencies, Internships and Fellowships

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Chicago
2006