New Virginia Tech cancer researcher seeks to understand and predict deadly tumor metastasis

Cancer is most treatable when it’s detected early. But once it spreads to other parts of the body, the chance of survival fades dramatically.

Computational biologist Shenglin Mei aims to change those outcomes with an innovative mix of computational biology, genetics, and immunology as the newest principal investigator at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC’s Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C.

“Metastasis is the major cause of cancer deaths. We want to understand the metastatic cascade and explore how tumor cells interact with the host microenvironment to drive tumor metastasis,” said Mei, assistant professor at the research institute. “There are currently no effective treatments for many patients with metastatic cancer. Investigating the tumor microenvironment offers new opportunities to deepen our understanding of tumor metastasis, uncover novel therapeutic targets, and potentially develop models to predict metastasis at an early stage.”

He joins an expanding team of researchers based at the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus.

“Virginia Tech’s new Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C., is an ‘academic start-up’ focused on bringing together the very best basic, translational, and computational researchers motivated by the opportunity to apply world-leading scientific innovation and ingenuity to make measurable progress on the hardest problems,” said Chris Hourigan, director of the Cancer Research Center — D.C. “Dr. Mei exemplifies this ethos. His work as a computational cancer researcher as a faculty member at Harvard Medical School has used powerful genomic tools such as single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to better understand both tumor and immunobiology in the hope of predicting, and ultimately preventing, cancer metastasis.”

Mei’s research aims to identify the metastatic progression, not only in cancer cells, but in other cell types in the surrounding tumor microenvironment. He wants to see how non-cancer cells change as the cancer progresses and how they might regulate cancer cells themselves.

That includes cells that are part of the body’s immune response, whose effectiveness in fighting the tumor could be muted by this remodeling process.

Mei, who is also an assistant professor in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, combines single-cell technologies, genomic data sets, machine learning, and experimental approaches to investigate the remodeling and regulatory mechanisms of the tumor microenvironment, particularly for prostate cancer and neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms in immature nerve cells, all of which have high rates of bone metastasis. He believes his research could apply to many other cancers as well.

Mei earned a bachelor’s degree in statistics, but was motivated by a strong passion for cancer research, and studied computational biology for his Ph.D. at the University of Shanghai, China.  At the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, his research focused on gene transcriptional and epigenetic regulation in cancer.  

For his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Mei delved into single-cell genomics. He investigated tumor microenvironment dynamics, spatial architecture, and cell-cell communications during cancer progression and metastasis. He contributed to pioneering studies delineating the tumor ecosystem in bone metastatic niches including prostate cancer, clear cell renal cell carcinoma, and neuroblastoma. 

In 2023, he received the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s Young Investigator Award.

“Dr. Mei represents a great example of a next generation cancer scientist who is armed with critical sets of skills for contributing to unraveling the processes that underlie the often deadly process of tumor metastasis,” said Michael Friedlander, Fralin Biomedical Research Institute executive director and Virginia Tech’s vice president for Health Sciences and Technology. “His background and experience with both the biological mechanisms of metastatic disease and a strong toolbox of bioinformatics and computational skills strategically position him to make inroads into this important area of health science. We are very fortunate and excited to have him join our growing cancer research program.”

Mei sees the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and the Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C., as a good fit for continuing his research because of the collaborative environment and the center’s proximity to and relationship with Children’s National Hospital.

“I’m excited to see how Dr. Mei thrives in this new environment,” Hourigan said. “We welcome his energy, expertise, and intellect to our growing community here.”