Dave S.B. Hoon, Professor and Director of Translational Research at the Saint John’s Cancer Institute (SJCI PHS), interacts with external academic, industry, government agencies, and international cancer centers to develop innovative translational cancer research opportunities. He has over 30 USA and international patents on his studies and has co-authored over 475 peer-reviewed articles and reviews, primarily related to translational molecular oncology of human solid tumors. He is the original pioneer of JWCI(now SJCI) in Santa Monica, 1991.
Dr. Hoon pioneered investigations of CTC and circulating cellfree DNA/miRNA biomarkers for monitoring cancer in patients’ blood enrolled in phase II/III clinical trials in the 90’s and early 2000. He developed methylated, LOH, mutations, genomic amplification and SNP cell-free DNA assays to multiple types of solid tumors. Since the early 1990’s, Dr. Hoon’s team has developed molecular biomarkers for molecular staging of sentinel lymph nodes and classification of human solid tumors including CRC, melanoma, and breast cancer. In the last decade he and his team have developed programs for assessment of epigenetic and ubiquitin regulatory pathways in solid tumors such as melanoma, breast cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, urologic tumors, and brain tumors that relate to tumor progression and drug resistance. Dr. Hoon has trained over 100 MD/PhD fellows and over a dozen graduate students. The department consists of >15 employees. He has had over 30 NCI RO1s and PO1s, Komen, California Breast, and DOD grants in the past 30 yrs. He has been funded through the Adelson Medical Research Foundation for the past 10 years in translational research in melanoma, immunotherapy, and ubiquitin studies. Currently he continues to develop new areas in the field of ubiquitin and ubiquilin molecules in immunotherapy and chemotherapy resistance and tumor progression. Dr. Hoon is the founder and director of the SJCI Sequencing Center focusing on boutique NGS in 2D/3D genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic assays in tissues, urine, and blood. He has fostered many collaborations with major cancer centers in the USA as well as international cancer centers. Over the years he has been involved in multiple phase II/III clinical trials CDX studies in the USA and internationally. Dr. Hoon works in collaboration with multiple pharmabiotech. He was involved in the TCGA on multiple cancers as an investigator and review committee publishing >25 publications.