Lab Alumni

Thoracic Oncology Laboratory
UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Thoracic Oncology Laboratory
415-502-0555 Phone
415-502-3179 Fax
jokamoto@cc.ucsf.edu

Junichi Okamoto joined the Thoracic Oncology Laboratory from Tokyo, Japan. He received MD and PhD degrees from Nippon Medical School and is currently on sabbatical from completing his thoracic surgery training there. As a child, Junichi spent a great deal of time shuttling in and of hospitals due to a congenital condition and by middle school he decided to pursue a career in medicine. He was further inspired to become a physician after reading a biography of Japanese bacteriologist Hideyo Noguchi. In elementary school, Junichi was an avid reader of the manga (graphic novel) series "Black Jack" and it was through this series that he realized he wanted to be a surgeon. His attraction to surgery came from a surgeon's ability to proactively treat a patient through an operation and then witness immediate results, and his ambitions were further stoked by a novel he read in high school by Jun'Ichi Watanabe.

Upon commencing his thoracic surgery residency in Japan, Junichi became interested in lung transplant biology but was unable to pursue this interest due to organ shortages in his native country. Around the same time, however, he became interested in lung cancer and its associated molecular biology and completed a PhD in the laboratory of Dr. Kiyoshi Koizumi.

Homeobox genes are a class of eukaryotic genes, involved in morphogenesis, containing a highly conserved homeobox sequence that encodes a DNA-binding protein domain. Junichi is studying the involvement of homeobox genes in Wnt and Hedgehog signaling and the implications such interactions may have on the development of lung cancer. He is studying a number of homeobox genes in vitro with hopes that they may become targets for lung cancer therapeutics.

Chunlei Shi is a visiting oncologist from Shanghai, China. Born and raised in Shanghai, she completed both her medical education and training from Jiaotong University and the affiliated Shanghai Chest Hospital where she now practices medical oncology. As part of her medical training in China, Chunlei was involved in clinical research studying the diagnosis of lung cancer in patients based upon p53 and EGFR mutations. At the Shanghai Chest Hospital, she is involved in a number of clinical trials testing various anti-cancer therapeutics, and her primary interest in the U.S. is to observe how clinical trials are conducted in the Thoracic Oncology Clinic so that she can learn about American medical practice and implement facets of our trials back home in China. Outside of medicine, Chunlei is an avid traveller and enjoys spending time with her family.