Research Interests

Neuropathology of Down Syndrome, COVID-19, and Brain Tumors; Biobanking; Pathology Informatics

Awards and Honors

Golden Apple Award, Teaching, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Dept of Pathology
Lucien J Rubinstein Award, Neuro-Oncology, American Association of Neuropathologists
Moore Award (Co-awardee), Clinico-pathologic correlation, American Assocation of Neuropathologists
Johnny Mercer Foundation Research Award for Brain Cancer

Short Biography

Dr. William Yong obtained his Bachelor's degree in Molecular Biology from UC Berkeley and a Master's degree in Biology (Cell and Molecular) from San Francisco State University; his Master's thesis research on reverse transcription of HIV-1 (AIDS) was conducted in the laboratory of Professor Jay Levy at UC San Francisco. He graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree from the UCLA School of Medicine completing his Dean's Scholar thesis under Prof. Harry Vinters. He did an anatomic and clinical pathology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School spending a research year in the Molecular Neuro-oncology Laboratory of Dr. David Louis. He completed his fellowship in Neuropathology at UCLA Medical Center with Drs. Harry Vinters and Anthony Verity. Dr. Yong then served as the Chief of Neuropathology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He returned to UCLA Medical Center where he was Director of the Brain Tumor Translational Resource, Director of the Neuropathology Fellowship and subsequently Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Chief of Neuropathology. He is currently Chief of Neuropathology and Director of the Neuropathology Fellowship at UC Irvine Medical Center. He is a Fellow and the Chair of the California delegation in the House of Delegates of the College of American Pathologists.

GOOGLE SCHOLAR BIBLIOGRAPHY (copy and paste URL to browser):
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=en&hl=en&user=m-ZmA4cAAAAJ

MyNCBI BIBLIOGRAPHY (170+ references; copy and paste URL to browser): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/william.yong.1/bibliography/46580657/public/?sort=date&direction=descending

Lou JJ, Movassaghi M, Gordy D, Olson MG, Zhang T, Khurana MS, Chen Z, Perez-Rosendahl M, Thammachantha S, Singer EJ, Magaki SD, Vinters HV, Yong WH. Neuropathology of COVID-19 (neuro-COVID): clinicopathological update. Free Neuropathol. 2021 Jan 18;2:2. doi: 10.17879/freeneuropathology-2021-2993. PMID: 33554218; PMCID: PMC7861505.

Yong WH, ed. Biobanking (Methods in Molecular Biology series). Springer Protocols, Humana Press, London. 2019. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-1-4939-8935-5)

Ellison DW, Love S, Chimelli L, Harding B, Lowe J, Vinters HV, Brandner S, Yong WH. Neuropathology. A textbook of CNS pathology. 3rd edition. Elsevier, London. 2013.

Cloughesy TF, Mochizuki AY, Orpilla JR, Hugo W, Lee AH, Davidson TB, Wang AC, Ellingson BM, Rytlewski JA, Sanders CM, Kawaguchi ES, Du L, Li G, Yong WH, Gaffey SC, Cohen AL, Mellinghoff IK, Lee EQ, Reardon DA, O'Brien BJ, Butowski NA, Nghiemphu PL, Clarke JL, Arrillaga-Romany IC, Colman H, Kaley TJ, de Groot JF, Liau LM, Wen PY, Prins RM. Neoadjuvant anti-PD-1 immunotherapy promotes a survival benefit with intratumoral and systemic immune responses in recurrent glioblastoma. Nat Med. 2019 Mar;25(3):477-486. doi: 10.1038/s41591-018-0337-7. Epub 2019 Feb 11. PMID: 30742122

Kofuji S, Hirayama A, Eberhardt AO, Kawaguchi R, Sugiura Y, Sampetrean O, Ikeda Y, Warren M, Sakamoto N, Kitahara S, Yoshino H, Yamashita D, Sumita K, Wolfe K, Lange L, Ikeda S, Shimada H, Minami N, Malhotra A, Morioka S, Ban Y, Asano M, Flanary VL, Ramkissoon A, Chow LML, Kiyokawa J, Mashimo T, Lucey G, Mareninov S, Ozawa T, Onishi N, Okumura K, Terakawa J, Daikoku T, Wise-Draper T, Majd N, Kofuji K, Sasaki M, Mori M, Kanemura Y, Smith EP, Anastasiou D, Wakimoto H, Holland EC, Yong WH, Horbinski C, Nakano I, DeBerardinis RJ, Bachoo RM, Mischel PS, Yasui W, Suematsu M, Saya H, Soga T, Grummt I, Bierhoff H, Sasaki AT. IMP dehydrogenase-2 drives aberrant nucleolar activity and promotes tumorigenesis in glioblastoma.
Nat Cell Biol. 2019 Aug;21(8):1003-1014. doi: 10.1038/s41556-019-0363-9. Epub 2019 Aug 1. PubMed PMID: 31371825; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6686884.

Bi J, Ichu TA, Zanca C, Yang H, Zhang W, Gu Y, Chowdhry S, Reed A, Ikegami S, Turner KM, Zhang W, Villa GR, Wu S, Quehenberger O, Yong WH, Kornblum HI, Rich JN, Cloughesy TF, Cavenee WK, Furnari FB, Cravatt BF, Mischel PS. Oncogene Amplification in Growth Factor Signaling Pathways Renders Cancers Dependent on Membrane Lipid Remodeling. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 9. pii: S1550-4131(19)30317-1. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.06.014. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31303424.

Goode B, Mondal G, Hyun M, Ruiz DG, Lin YH, Van Ziffle J, Joseph NM, Onodera C, Talevich E, Grenert JP, Hewedi IH, Snuderl M, Brat DJ, Kleinschmidt-DeMasters BK, Rodriguez FJ, Louis DN, Yong WH, Lopes MB, Rosenblum MK, Butowski N, Tihan T, Bollen AW, Phillips JJ, Wiita AP, Yeh I, Jacobson MP, Bastian BC, Perry A, Solomon DA. A recurrent kinase domain mutation in PRKCA defines chordoid glioma of the third ventricle. Nat Commun. 2018 Feb 23;9(1):810. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-02826-8. PubMed PMID: 29476136; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5824822.

Mai WX, Gosa L, Daniels VW, Ta L, Tsang JE, Higgins B, Gilmore WB, Bayley NA, Harati MD, Lee JT, Yong WH, Kornblum HI, Bensinger SJ, Mischel PS, Rao PN, Clark PM, Cloughesy TF, Letai A, Nathanson DA. Cytoplasmic p53 couples oncogene-driven glucose metabolism to apoptosis and is a therapeutic target in glioblastoma. Nat Med. 2017 Nov;23(11):1342-1351. doi: 10.1038/nm.4418. Epub 2017 Oct 9. PubMed PMID: 29035366; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5683421.

Babic I, Anderson ES, Tanaka K, Guo D, Masui K, Li B, Zhu S, Gu Y, Villa GR, Akhavan D, Nathanson D, Gini B, Mareninov S, Li R, Camacho CE, Kurdistani SK, Eskin A, Nelson SF, Yong WH, Cavenee WK, Cloughesy TF, Christofk HR, Black DL, Mischel PS. EGFR mutation-induced alternative splicing of Max contributes to growth of glycolytic tumors in brain cancer. Cell Metab. 2013 Jun 4;17(6):1000-8. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2013.04.013. Epub 2013 May 23. PubMed PMID: 23707073; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3679227.

Masui K, Tanaka K, Akhavan D, Babic I, Gini B, Matsutani T, Iwanami A, Liu F, Villa GR, Gu Y, Campos C, Zhu S, Yang H, Yong WH, Cloughesy TF, Mellinghoff IK, Cavenee WK, Shaw RJ, Mischel PS. mTOR complex 2 controls glycolytic metabolism in glioblastoma through FoxO acetylation and upregulation of c-Myc. Cell Metab. 2013Nov 5;18(5):726-39. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2013.09.013. Epub 2013 Oct 17. PubMed PMID: 24140020; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3840163.

Movassaghi M, Shabihkhani M, Hojat SA, Williams RR, Chung LK, Im K, Lucey GM, Wei B, Mareninov S, Wang MW, Ng DW, Tashjian RS, Magaki S, Perez-Rosendahl M, Yang I, Khanlou N, Vinters HV, Liau LM, Nghiemphu PL, Lai A, Cloughesy TF, Yong WH. Early experience with formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) based commercial clinical genomic profiling of gliomas-robust and informative with caveats. Exp Mol Pathol. 2017 Aug;103(1):87-93. doi: 10.1016/j.yexmp.2017.06.006. Epub 2017 Jun 27. PubMed PMID: 28663030.

Shabihkhani M, Telesca D, Movassaghi M, Naeini YB, Naeini KM, Hojat SA, Gupta D, Lucey GM, Ontiveros M, Wang MW, Hanna LS, Sanchez DE, Mareninov S, Khanlou N, Vinters HV, Bergsneider M, Nghiemphu PL, Lai A, Liau LM, Cloughesy TF, Yong WH. Incidence, survival, pathology, and genetics of adult Latino Americans with glioblastoma. J Neurooncol. 2017 Apr;132(2):351-358. doi: 10.1007/s11060-017-2377-0. Epub 2017 Feb 4. PubMed PMID: 28161760.

Im K, Gui D, Yong WH. An Introduction to Hardware, Software, and Other Information Technology Needs of Biomedical Biobanks. In: Biobanking (Yong WH, ed.), Springer 2019; Methods Mol Biol. 2019;1897:17-29. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-8935-5_3. PubMed PMID: 30539431.

Tashjian RS, Williams RR, Vinters HV, Yong WH. Autopsy Biobanking: Biospecimen Procurement, Integrity, Storage, and Utilization. In: Biobanking (Yong WH, ed.), Springer 2019; Methods Mol Biol. 2019;1897:77-87. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-8935-5_8. PubMed PMID: 30539436.

Hojat A, Wei B, Olson MG, Mao Q, Yong WH. Procurement and Storage of Surgical Biospecimens. In: Biobanking (Yong WH, ed.), Springer 2019; Methods Mol Biol. 2019;1897:65-76. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-8935-5_7. PubMed PMID: 30539435.

Yong WH, Shabihkhani M, Telesca D, Yang S, Tso JL, Menjivar JC, Wei B, Lucey GM, Mareninov S, Chen Z, Liau LM, Lai A, Nelson SF, Cloughesy TF, Tso CL. Ribosomal Proteins RPS11 and RPS20, Two Stress-Response Markers of Glioblastoma Stem Cells, Are Novel Predictors of Poor Prognosis in Glioblastoma Patients. PLoS One. 2015 Oct 27;10(10):e0141334. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141334. eCollection 2015. PubMed PMID: 26506620; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4624638.

Leung AA, Lou JJ, Mareninov S, Silver SS, Routbort MJ, Riben M, Andrechak G, Yong WH. Tolerance testing of passive radio frequency identification tags for solvent, temperature, and pressure conditions encountered in an anatomic pathology or biorepository setting. J Pathol Inform. 2010 Oct 1;1:21

Lou JJ, Andrechak G, Riben M, Yong WH. A review of radio frequency identification technology for the anatomic pathology or biorepository laboratory: Much promise, some progress, and more work needed. J Pathol Inform. 2011;2:34. Epub 2011 Aug 13

Sun J, Masterman-Smith MD, Graham NA, Jiao J, Mottahedeh J, Laks DR, Ohashi M, DeJesus J, Kamei K, Lee KB, Wang H, Yu ZT, Lu YT, Hou S, Li K, Liu M, Zhang N, Wang S, Angenieux B, Panosyan E, Samuels ER, Park J, Williams D, Konkankit V, Nathanson D, van Dam RM, Phelps ME, Wu H, Liau LM, Mischel PS, Lazareff JA, Kornblum HI, Yong WH*, Graeber TG*, Tseng HR*. A microfluidic platform for systems pathology: multiparameter single-cell signaling measurements of clinical brain tumor specimens. Cancer Res. 2010 Aug 1;70(15):6128-38

Yong WH, Butte PV, Pikul BK, Jo JA, Fang Q, Papaioannou MS, Black KL, Marcu L. Distinction of brain tissue, low grade and high grade glioma with time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. Front Biosci. 2006; 11:1255-63

Harati MD, Williams RR, Movassaghi M, Hojat A, Lucey GM, Yong WH. An Introduction to Starting a Biobank. In: Biobanking (Yong WH, ed.), Springer 2019; Methods Mol Biol. 2019;1897:7-16. doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-8935-5_2. PubMed PMID: 30539430.

Lim S, Shahinian H, Maya MM, Yong W, Heaney AP. Temozolomide: Novel treatment for pituitary carcinoma. Lancet Oncology 2006; 7(6):518-520

Heaney AP, Fernando M, Yong WH, Melmed S. Functional PPAR-gamma receptor is a novel therapeutic target for ACTH-secreting pituitary adenomas (Cushing’s disease). Nature Medicine 2002; 8(11):1281-7

Yu JS, Yong WH, Wilson D, Black K. Glioblastoma induction after radiosurgery. Lancet. 2000; 356 (9241): 1576-1577

Link to this profile

http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=6898

Last updated

09/07/2021