King L. Hung, PhD

Cancer is fundamentally a disease of lost tissue integrity, in which cells fail to properly coordinate and regulate one another, leading to abnormal cell growth and invasion within tissues. Dr. Hung aims to uncover basic principles of how cells combine chemical and mechanical signals to maintain tissue integrity. Using flatworms that are capable of tissue regeneration as a model, he will employ live whole-worm imaging of tissue regeneration to study mechanical and chemical signaling at the cellular level. This project will provide key insights about the logic of multicellular signaling circuits for maintaining normal tissue integrity and clues about how these signaling circuits can be dysregulated in cancer. Dr. Hung received his PhD from Stanford University, Stanford, and his BS from the University of Washington, Seattle.