Associate Director, Laboratory Operations
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
My name is Wendong Zhang, an Assoc Dir, Laboratory Ops Pediatrics in UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston Texas. I have been working in the medical filed for more than 20 years and have been dedicated to the research of osteosarcoma in children.
Osteosarcoma is most common malignant bone tumor in children and adolescents, frequently presents as a mass in the femur or tibia, metastasizes to the lungs. Overall survival for patients with non-metastatic disease is 60-70%, with metastatic disease is <30%. The survival rates have been stagnant for 4 decades. Due to the low survival rate, it is particularly important to adopt new therapeutic methods and to discover and use new anticancer drug. I have joined the NCI pediatrics preclinical testing programs (PPTP also known as PPTC, PIVOT) since 2004. The programs collaborated with more than 80 pharmaceutical companies systematically evaluates novel agents against genomically characterized childhood cancer solid tumor and leukemia models. As a key member of the osteosarcoma team, I directly lead and participate in the testing and screening of new agents against osteosarcoma.
