Hui-Chen Wu, PhD

Titles and Affiliations

Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Mailman School of Public Health
Faculty Director, Biomarkers Laboratory
Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
Co-director, Translational Research Facility Core
Columbia’s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health and Justice

Research Area

Developing better risk prediction models by identifying and incorporating biomarkers of environmental exposures.

Impact

Environmental chemicals such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloro-ethane (DDT) cause DNA damage that can lead to cancer. The severity of the damage and the ability to repair it influences the risk for development of breast cancer. Women with an already high risk of breast cancer, due to inherited factors or strong family history, may be more vulnerable to environmental pollutant exposure. Using the data from two established registries of high-risk families, Dr. Hui-Chen Wu’s colleagues Drs. Terry and Regina Santella have examined the impact of environmental exposures in young girls. Previous studies include investigating how environmental exposures and genetic susceptibility—specifically as it relates to the ability to repair DNA damage—are related to breast cancer risk. Dr. Terry and Dr. Wu will continue this work to develop and validate biomarkers that can be used in conjunction with current breast cancer risk assessment models to enhance screening and preventive measures for those at high risk of developing breast cancer.

Progress Thus Far

The team has shown that exposure to PAH, a common environmental pollutant, increased the risk of breast cancer in high-risk women. Using a method developed in their laboratories, they discovered that this risk is almost 3-fold greater in women whose cells were deficient in DNA repair functions i.e., those already at high genetic risk due to inherited mutations in genes such as BRCA1/2. Other studies examining 92 cancer-related proteins showed four proteins formed clusters with other metabolites and were positively associated with breast cancer risk—this suggests that profiling protein markers in blood can help identify those that play a role in breast cancer development.

What’s Next

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are particles released from cells that contain many factors including proteins, DNA, and microRNA. Found in the blood, EVs are a potential source of disease-associated biomarkers with EV-associated microRNAs (miRNAs) known to play crucial roles in numerous physiological and pathological processes including breast cancer progression. The next step of Drs. Wu and Terry’s research program focuses on understanding the role of EV-associated miRNAs and specifically identifying miRNA biomarkers associated with breast cancer progression. Their comprehensive analyses could yield robust and reliable biomarkers that are critically needed to improve risk assessment, diagnostic routines, and clinical outcomes.

Biography

Hui-Chen Wu, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University Medical Center. She is also the Faculty Director of the Biomarkers Laboratory, a shared resource for the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center and co-director of the P30 Translational Research Facility Core at Columbia’s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health and Justice in Northern Manhattan. She received her PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from Columbia University.

Dr. Hui-Chen Wu is an environmental health scientist and molecular epidemiologist who investigates how environmental carcinogens drive cancer development through molecular mechanisms. She develops and applies ‘omics-based biomarkers—including DNA methylation, microRNA expression, and extracellular vesicle profiling—to detect early signals of breast and liver cancers, particularly in populations exposed to toxins such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and mycotoxins. Leveraging high-throughput platforms like Illumina methylation arrays, targeted bisulfite sequencing, and next-generation sequencing, her work uncovers epigenetic alterations and DNA repair phenotypes that reveal individual susceptibility to toxic exposures and cancer initiation.