Lanlan Shen, MD, PhD

Professor | Baylor College of Medicine
March of Dimes
Lanlan Shen

Biography

Dr. Lanlan Shen is a Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Shen completed her MD at Zhenjiang Medical School in China in 1992 and her PhD in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Shanghai Second Medical University in 1997. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Shen has advanced her academic career as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (1999) and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (1999–2003), Instructor (2003–2004) and Assistant Professor (2005–2009) in the Leukemia Department at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Children’s Nutrition Research Center (CNRC) at Baylor College of Medicine (2009–2022). Epigenetics has been the main theme of her research, beginning during her Ph.D. program and continuing throughout her academic career. Her work, supported by the March of Dimes Research Award, focused on understanding epigenetic regulatory pathways that mediate intestinal host-microbiome interactions. Dr. Shen’s research group has developed and utilized technologies, including single-cell transcriptomics, epigenomics and CRISPR-mediated epigenome editing, to delineate the epigenetic transcriptional regulation by DNA methylation and to uncover new strategies for intestinal disease prevention and treatment.

Education

 MD Medicine, Zhenjiang Medical School, China (1992)

 PhD Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Shanghai Second Medical University, China (1997)

Honors and recognition

Kimmel Scholar Award, Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research (2008)

March of Dimes Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award (2019)

March of Dimes Research Award (2018)

Selected publications

  1. Yang L, Chen X, Lee C, Shi J, Lawrence EB, Zhang L, Li Y, Gao N, Jung SY, Creighton CJ, Li JJ, Cui Y, Arimura S, Lei Y, Li W, Shen L. Functional characterization of age-dependent p16 epimutation reveals biological drivers and therapeutic targets for colorectal cancer. J Exp Clin Cancer Res. 2023 May 4, 42(1):113. PMID: 37143122; PMCID: PMCID: PMC10157929
  2. Shi J, Xu J, Chen Y, Li J, Shen L, Li JJ, Li W. The concurrence of DNA methylation and demethylation is associated with transcription regulation. Nature Communications. 2021 Sept 6; 12(1):5285. PMID: 34489442; PMCID: PMC8421433
  3. Alves da Silva AV, de Castro Oliveira SB, Di Rienzi SC, Brown-Steinke K, Dehan LM, Rood JK, Carreira VS, Le H, Maier EA, Betz KJ, Aihara E, Ley RE, Preidis GA, Shen L, Moore SR. Murine methyl donor deficiency impairs early growth in association with dysmorphic small intestinal crypts and reduced gut microbial community diversity. Curr Dev Nutr., 2019 3 (1): nzy070. PMCID: PMC6324351
  4. Schraw JM, Yiu TT, Lupo PJ, Tsavachidis S, Rau R, Bondy ML, Rabin KR, Shen L, Scheurer ME. Maternal folate genes and aberrant DNA hypermethylation in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. PlosOne, 2018 13 (5): e0197408. PMID: 29763473; PMCID: PMC5953491
  5. Parikh N, Shuck RL, Gagea M, Shen L, Donehower LA. Enhanced inflammation and attenuated tumor suppressor pathways are associated with oncogene-induced lung tumors in aged mice. Aging Cell. 2018 17 (1). 12691. PMID: 29047229; PMCID: PMC5771401
  6. Yu DH, Gadkari M, Zhou Q, Yu S, Gao N, Guan Y, Schady D, Roshan TN, Chen MH, Laritsky E, Ge Z, Wang H, Chen R, Westwater C, Bry L, Waterland RA, Moriarty C, Hwang C, Swennes AG, Moore SR, Shen L. Postnatal epigenetic regulation of intestinal stem cells requires DNA methylation and is guided by the microbiome. Genome Biol. 2015 Sep 30; 16:211. PMID: 26420038; PMCID: PMC4589031
  7. Yu DH, Waterland RA, Zhang P, Schady D, Chen MH, Guan Y, Gadkari M, Shen L. Targeted p16Ink4a epimutation causes tumorigenesis and reduces survival in mice. J Clin Invest. 2014; 124 (9): 3708. PMID: 25061879; PMCID: PMC4151219
  8. Yu DH, Ware C, Waterland RA, Zhang J, Chen MH, Gadhari M, Kunde-Ramamoorthy G, Nosavanh LM, Shen L. Developmentally programmed 3’ CpG island methylation confers tissue- and cell-type specific transcriptional activation. Mol Cell Biol. 2013; 33 (9): 1845-58. PMID: 23459939; PMCID: PMC3624169

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