Dr. Yi was recently recruited to Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center as a tenure-track Assistant Professor from the Wistar Institute, where she focused her postdoctoral studies on elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying Neurofibromatosis Type II, a rare cancer syndrome that affects primarily adolescents and young adults. Joining Lombardi in Fall 2011, Dr. Yi and her team are dissecting signaling crosstalk between important cancer pathways using a combination of in vitro and in vivo approaches. The major pathways currently under their investigation include the Hippo-Yap, the TGFbeta-Smad, and signaling pathways downstream of the small GTPases, Ras and Rac. Besides basic mechanistic studies, the Yi lab is conducting translational research to develop novel targeted therapeutic strategies, which could potentially be utilized to treat multiple types of human cancers.