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Minh To, Ph.D.
Assistant Adjunct Professor of Surgery
Contact Information
University Of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA 94115-0128
(415) 502-6791 Voice
(415) 502-6779 Fax
mto@cc.ucsf.edu
Education
- 1989-93, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada B.Sc. Genetics/Biology
- 1994-98, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada M.Sc. Molecular/Medical Genetics
- 1998-03, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Ph.D. Molecular/Medical Genetics
Postdoctoral Training
- 2003-08, Postdoctoral Scholar, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
- 2008, Associate Specialist, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Program Affiliations
- Thoracic Oncology Program
- Thoracic Oncology Laboratory
- UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
- UCSF Department of Surgery
Research Interests
- Cancer initiation (stem) cells
- Expression profiling
- Genomic analysis
- Mouse models of lung and skin cancer
- miRNA profiling
- Role of Ras genes in cancer
- Role of Kras in lung carcinogenesis
Biography
Minh To is a molecular geneticist/biologist and a member of the UCSF Thoracic Oncology Program. Dr. To received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Toronto. His Ph.D. dissertation, under the supervision of Dr. Irene Andrulis, involved the identification and functional characterization of molecular alterations in human breast cancer. Following his graduate studies, he joined Dr. Allan Balmain's group at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center as a postdoctoral fellow, working primarily on mouse models of human cancers. In 2008, he was recruited to the UCSF Department of Surgery as an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Surgery. Dr. To has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications including two papers as first author in Nature Genetics on the role of Kras in lung cancer susceptibility and pathology. His current research utilizes mouse models to study the mechanism of lung cancer susceptibility and biology, and to identify of novel targets for therapeutic intervention. Dr. To is also intimately involved in a collaborative study with Drs. Allan Balmain and David Jablons employing a "systems genetics" approach for large scale molecular analysis of human lung cancers in relation to clinical outcomes.
Selected Publications
- Minh D. To, Christine E. Wong, Anthony N. Karnezis, Reyno Del Rosario, Roberto Di Lauro, and Allan Balmain. Kras regulatory elements and exon 4A determine mutation specificity in lung cancer, Nature Genetics 40(10): 1240-1244 (2008).
- Minh D. To, Jesus Perez-Losada, Jian-Hua Mao, Jeff Hsu, Tyler Jacks, and Allan Balmain. A functional switch from lung cancer resistance to susceptibility at the Pas1 locus in Kras2LA2 mice, Nature Genetics 38(8):926-930 (2006).
- To M.D., Gokgoz N, Doyle T.G., Donoviel D.B., Knight J.A., Hyslop P.S., Bernstein A., and Andrulis I.L. Functional characterization of novel presenilin-2 variants identified in human breast cancers, Oncogene 25(25): 3557-3564 (2006).
- To M.D., Perez-Losada J, Mao J.H., and Balmain A. Crosstalk between Pten and Ras signaling pathways in tumor development, Cell Cycle 4(9): 1185-1188 (2005).
- Minh D. To, Stephanie A. Faseruk, Nalan Gokgoz, Susan J. Done, Dushanthi Pinnaduwage, and Irene L. Andrulis. LAF-4 is abberantly expressed in human breast cancer, International Journal of Cancer 115(4): 568-574 (2005).
In the News
Nature Genetics Article Sheds Light on KRAS tissue-specificity
Thoracic Oncology Lab - Oct 02, 2008In the October tissue of Nature Genetics, scientist Minh To helped to unravel some of the mystery behind Ras mutation tumor-type in human cancers, a long-standing question in the Ras field. Dr. To and colleagues demonstrated that mice completely lacking the Kras protein, but expressing Hras under the regulation of the Kras locus, were highly susceptible to carcinogen induced lung tumors....
