Chae Young Han, PhD

Dr. Chae Young Han is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Research Center under the mentorship of Dr. Robert C. Bast. Her research focuses on the detection of CA125 negative persistent and recurrent ovarian cancer. She received her undergraduate degree in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her Master degree from Dept of Microbiology & Immunology in Western University. She received Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Medicine from the University of Ottawa under the research supervision of Dr. Benjamin K. Tsang. During Ph.D years, she studied the tumor metabolism of chemoresistant epithelial ovarian cancer and its translational application. With OCRA’s grant support, Dr. Han’s research will focus on developing clinical biomarkers that can improve upon CA125 for detecting persistent minimal residual disease at second look operation or recurrent ovarian cancers, in particular patients on PARP inhibitor maintenance therapy. These studies will afford patients with greater lead time with strategic therapeutic plan, ultimately leading to better treatment outcome.