Pfizer, July, 2021 - current
Senior Principal Computational Biologist, Nov., 2024 - current
Senior Computational Biologist, July, 2021 - October, 2024
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Oct., 2017 - June, 2021
Postdoctoral Associate, Cancer Program
Advisor: Gad Getz, Ph.D.
The UT MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX, USA, Aug., 2013 - Sept., 2017
Ph.D., Cancer Biology
Advisor: Andrew Futreal, Ph.D. (CPRIT Graduate Scholar Co-mentor : James Allison, Ph.D.)
Dissertation: 'Integrative Cancer Immunogenomic Analysis of Serial Melanoma Biopsies Reveals Correlates of Response and Resistance to Sequential CTLA-4 and PD-1 Blockade Treatment'
Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Genomic Medicine, Mar., 2014 - Sept., 2017
The University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, MI, USA, Aug., 2006 - April 2010
M.S., Biostatistics, Aug., 2008 - April 2010
Graduate Student Research Assistant, Dept. of Internal Medicine, May 2009 - April 2010
M.S., Biomedical Engineering, Aug., 2006 – April 2008
Graduate Student Research Assistant, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Jan. 2007 - April.30.2008
KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Mar., 2002 - Aug.,2006
B.S., Bioengineering, Summa Cum Laude
Exchange Student, University of Iowa, USA, Fall 04
Supported by department scholarship, Sept. 2003 - Dec. 2005
Hansung Science High School, Mar. 2000 - Feb. 2002
(* : Authors contributed equally)
Julie Karam, Paul A. Rejto, Jadwiga Renata Bienkowska, Xinmeng Jasmine Mu & Whijae Roh, "Identification of breast cancer subtypes and drug response prediction through forward and reverse translation." npj Precision Oncology 9, 267 (2025).
Cynthia L. Palmer, Britton Boras, Bernadette Pascual, Na Li, Danan Li, Scott Garza, Nanni Huser, Jing Tang Yuan, Julie A. Cianfrogna, Tae Sung, Elizabeth McMillan, Na Wei, Jason Carmody, Aubrey Nayeon Kang, Seth Darensburg, Taran Dodd , James V. Oakley, James Solowiej, Lisa Nguyen, Suvi T.M. Orr, Ping Chen , Eric Johnson, Xiu Yu, Wade C. Diehl, Gary M. Gallego, Mehran Jalaie, Rose Ann Ferre, Sujin Cho-Schultz, Hong Shen, Judith G. Deal, Qin Zhang, Timothy R. Baffi, Meirong Xu, Whijae Roh, Jennifer Lapira-Miller, Jerome Goudeau, Yanke Yu, Rajat Gupta, Kimberly Kim, Stephen G. Dann, Zhengyan Kan, John C. Kath, Sajiv K. Nair, Nichol Miller, Brion W. Murray, Andrew R. Nager, Casey Quinlan, Matthew D. Petroski, Cathy Zhang, Aida Sacaan, Todd VanArsdale, Lars Anders, "CDK4 selective inhibition improves preclinical anti-tumor efficacy and safety" Cancer Cell 43.3 (2025): 464-481.
Zhengyan Kan , Ji Wen, Vinicius Bonato, Jennifer Webster, Wenjing Yang, Vladimir Ivanov, Kimberly Hyunjung Kim, Whijae Roh, Chaoting Liu, Xinmeng Jasmine Mu, Jennifer Lapira-Miller, Jon Oyer, Todd VanArsdale, Paul A. Rejto & Jadwiga Bienkowska, "Real-world clinical multi-omics analyses reveal bifurcation of ER-independent and ER-dependent drug resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors." Nature Communication 16, 932 (2025)
Mikkael A. Sekeres, Pau Montesinos, Jan Novak, Jianxiang Wang, Deepa Jeyakumar, Benjamin Tomlinson, Jiri Mayer, Erin Jou, Tadeusz Robak, David C. Taussig, Hervé Dombret, Akil Merchant, Naveed Shaik, Thomas O’Brien, Whijae Roh, Xueli Liu, Wendy Ma, Christine G. DiRienzo, Geoffrey Chan and Jorge E. Cortes, "Glasdegib plus intensive or non-intensive chemotherapy for untreated acute myeloid leukemia: results from the randomized, phase 3 BRIGHT AML 1019 trial." Leukemia (2023): 1-10.
Ruben Bill*, Pratyaksha Wirapati*, Marius Messemaker, Whijae Roh, Beatrice Zitti, Florent Duval, Máté Kiss, Jong Chul Park, Talia M. Saal, Jan Hoelzl, David Tarussio, Fabrizio Benedetti, Stéphanie Tissot, Lana Kandalaft, Marco Varrone, Giovanni Ciriello, Thomas A. McKee, Yan Monnier, Maxime Mermod, Emily M. Blaum, Irena Gushterova, Anna L. K. Gonye, Nir Hacohen, Gad Getz, Thorsten R. Mempel, Allon M. Klein, Ralph Weissleder, William C. Faquin, Peter M. Sadow, Derrick Lin, Sara I. Pai, Moshe Sade-Feldman, Mikael J. Pittet, "CXCL9: SPP1 macrophage polarity identifies a network of cellular programs that control human cancers." Science 381.6657 (2023): 515-524.
Whijae Roh*, Yifat Geffen*, Hongui Cha*, Mendy Miller , Shankara Anand, Jaegil Kim, David Heiman, Justin F. Gainor, Peter W. Laird, Andrew D. Cherniack, Chan-Young Ock, Se-Hoon Lee, Gad Getz, "High-resolution profiling of lung adenocarcinoma identifies expression subtypes with specific biomarkers and clinically relevant vulnerabilities." Cancer Research (2022).
Miles C. Andrews, Connie P. M. Duong, Vancheswaran Gopalakrishnan, Valerio Iebba, Wei-Shen Chen, Lisa Derosa, Md Abdul Wadud Khan, Alexandria P. Cogdill, Michael G. White, Matthew C. Wong, Gladys Ferrere, Aurélie Fluckiger, Maria P. Roberti, Paule Opolon, Maryam Tidjani Alou, Satoru Yonekura, Whijae Roh, Christine N. Spencer, Irina Fernandez Curbelo, Luis Vence, Alexandre Reuben, Sarah Johnson, Reetakshi Arora, Golnaz Morad, Matthew Lastrapes, Erez N. Baruch, Latasha Little, Curtis Gumbs, Zachary A. Cooper, Peter A. Prieto, Khalida Wani, Alexander J. Lazar, Michael T. Tetzlaff, Courtney W. Hudgens, Margaret K. Callahan, Matthew Adamow, Michael A. Postow, Charlotte E. Ariyan, Pierre-Olivier Gaudreau, Luigi Nezi, Didier Raoult, Catalin Mihalcioiu, Arielle Elkrief, Rossanna C. Pezo, Lauren E. Haydu, Julie M. Simon, Hussein A. Tawbi, Jennifer McQuade, Patrick Hwu, Wen-Jen Hwu, Rodabe N. Amaria, Elizabeth M. Burton, Scott E. Woodman, Stephanie Watowich, Adi Diab, Sapna P. Patel, Isabella C. Glitza, Michael K. Wong, Li Zhao, Jianhua Zhang, Nadim J. Ajami, Joseph Petrosino, Robert R. Jenq, Michael A. Davies, Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, P. Andrew Futreal, Padmanee Sharma, James P. Allison, Bertrand Routy, Laurence Zitvogel, and Jennifer A. Wargo, "Gut microbiota signatures are associated with toxicity to combined CTLA-4 and PD-1 blockade." Nature Medicine (2021): 1-10.
Xin Hong*, Whijae Roh*, Ryan J Sullivan, Keith H.K. Wong, Ben S. Wittner, Hongshan Guo, Taronish D. Dubash, Moshe Sade-Feldman, Ben K. Wesley, Elad Horwitz, Genevieve M. Boland, Dieuwke L. Marvin, Todd Bonesteel, Chenyue Lu, François Aguet, Risa Burr, Samuel S. Freeman, Laxmi Parida, Katherine Calhoun, Michelle K. Jewett, Linda T. Nieman, Nir Hacohen, Anders M. Näär, David T. Ting, Mehmet Toner, Shannon L. Stott, Gad Getz, Shyamala Maheswaran, and Daniel A. Haber, “The lipogenic regulator SREBF2 induces Transferrin in circulating melanoma cells and suppresses ferroptosis.”, Cancer Discovery 11.3 (2021): 678-695.
Won-Chul Lee, Alexandre Reuben, Xin Hu, Nicholas McGranahan, Runzhe Chen, Ali Jalali, Marcelo V. Negrao, Shawna Hubert, Chad Tang, Chia-Chin Wu, Anthony San Lucas, Whijae Roh, Kenichi Suda, Jihye Kim, Aik-Choon Tan, David H Peng, Wei Lu, Ximing Tang, Chi-Wan Chow, Junya Fujimoto, Carmen Behrens, Neda Kalhor, Kazutaka Fukumura, Marcus Coyle, Rebecca Thornton, Curtis Gumbs, Jun Li, Chang-Jiun Wu, Latasha Little, Emily Roarty, Xingzhi Song, J. Jack Lee, Erik P. Sulman, Ganesh Rao, Stephen Swisher, Lixia Diao, Jing Wang, John Heymach, Jason Huse, Paul Scheet, Ignacio I. Wistuba, Don L. Gibbons, P. Andrew Futreal, Jianhua Zhang, Daniel Gomez, Jianjun Zhang, “Multiomics profiling of primary lung cancers and distant metastases reveals immunosuppression as a common characteristic of tumor cells with metastatic plasticity.”, Genome Biology 21.1 (2020): 1-21.
Neelima Vidula, Taronish Dubash, Michael S Lawrence, Antoine Simoneau, Andrzej Niemierko, Erica Blouch, Becky Nagy, Whijae Roh, Brian Chirn, Brittany A Reeves, Giuliana Malvarosa, Jochen Lennerz, Steven J Isakoff, Dejan Juric, Douglas Micalizzi, Seth Wander, Laura Spring, Beverly Moy, Kristen Shannon, Jerry Younger, Richard Lanman, Mehmet Toner, A John Iafrate, Gad Getz, Lee Zou, Leif W Ellisen, Shyamala Maheswaran, Daniel A Haber, Aditya Bardia, "Identification of somatically acquired BRCA1/2 mutations by cfDNA analysis in patients with metastatic breast cancer." Clinical Cancer Research 26.18 (2020): 4852-4862.
Akash Mitra, Miles C. Andrews, Whijae Roh, Marianna Petaccia De Macedo, Courtney W. Hudgens, Fernando Carapeto, Shailbala Singh, Alexandre Reuben, Feng Wang, Xizeng Mao, Xingzhi Song, Khalida Wani, Samantha Tippen, Kwok-Shing Ng, Aislyn Schalck, Donald A. Sakellariou-Thompson, Eveline Chen, Sangeetha M. Reddy, Christine N. Spencer, Diana Wiesnoski, Latasha D. Little, Curtis Gumbs, Zachary A. Cooper, Elizabeth M. Burton, Patrick Hwu, Michael A. Davies, Jianhua Zhang, Chantale Bernatchez, Nicholas Navin, Padmanee Sharma, James P. Allison, Jennifer A. Wargo, Cassian Yee, Michael T. Tetzlaff, Wen-Jen Hwu, Alexander J. Lazar & P. Andrew Futreal, “Spatially resolved analyses link genomic and immune diversity and reveal unfavorable neutrophil activation in melanoma.” Nature Communications 11.1 (2020): 1-18.
Gabriele Romano, Pei-Ling Chen, Ping Song, Jennifer L. McQuade, Roger J. Liang, Mingguang Liu, Whijae Roh, Dzifa Y. Duose, Fernando C.L. Carapeto, Jun Li, Jessica L.F. Teh, Andrew E. Aplin, Merry Chen, Jianhua Zhang, Alexander J. Lazar, Michael A. Davies, P. Andrew Futreal, Rodabe N. Amaria, David Y. Zhang, Jennifer A. Wargo and Lawrence N. Kwong, "A preexisting rare PIK3CAE545K subpopulation confers clinical resistance to MEK plus CDK4/6 inhibition in NRAS melanoma and is dependent on S6K1 signaling." Cancer discovery 8.5 (2018): 556-567.
Alexandre Reuben, Christine N. Spencer, Peter A. Prieto, Vancheswaran Gopalakrishnan, Sangeetha M. Reddy, John P. Miller, Xizeng Mao, Mariana Petaccia De Macedo, Jiong Chen, Xingzhi Song, Hong Jiang, Pei-Ling Chen, Hannah C. Beird, Haven R. Garber, Whijae Roh, Khalida Wani, Eveline Chen, Cara Haymaker, Marie-Andrée Forget, Latasha D. Little, Curtis Gumbs, Rebecca L. Thornton, Courtney W. Hudgens, Wei-Shen Chen, Jacob Austin-Breneman, Robert Szczepaniak Sloane, Luigi Nezi, Alexandria P. Cogdill, Chantale Bernatchez, Jason Roszik, Patrick Hwu, Scott E. Woodman, Lynda Chin, Hussein Tawbi, Michael A. Davies, Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, Rodabe N. Amaria, Isabella C. Glitza, Adi Diab, Sapna P. Patel, Jianhua Hu, Jeffrey E. Lee, Elizabeth A. Grimm, Michael T. Tetzlaff, Alexander J. Lazar, Ignacio I. Wistuba, Karen Clise-Dwyer, Brett W. Carter, Jianhua Zhang, P. Andrew Futreal, Padmanee Sharma, James P. Allison, Zachary A. Cooper & Jennifer A. Wargo, "Genomic and immune heterogeneity are associated with differential responses to therapy in melanoma." npj Genomic Medicine 2.1 (2017): 10.
Whijae Roh*, Pei-Ling Chen*, Alexandre Reuben*, Christine N. Spencer, Peter A. Prieto, John P. Miller, Vancheswaran Gopalakrishnan, Feng Wang, Zachary A. Cooper, Sangeetha M. Reddy, Curtis Gumbs, Latasha Little, Qing Chang, Wei-Shen Chen, Khalida Wani, Mariana Petaccia De Macedo, Eveline Chen, Jacob L. Austin-Breneman, Hong Jiang, Jason Roszik, Michael T. Tetzlaff, Michael A. Davies, Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, Hussein Tawbi, Alexander J. Lazar, Patrick Hwu, Wen-Jen Hwu, Adi Diab, Isabella C. Glitza, Sapna P. Patel, Scott E. Woodman, Rodabe N. Amaria, Victor G. Prieto, Jianhua Hu, Padmanee Sharma, James P. Allison, Lynda Chin, Jianhua Zhang, Jennifer A. Wargo, and P. Andrew Futreal, "Integrated molecular analysis of tumor biopsies on sequential CTLA-4 and PD-1 blockade reveals markers of response and resistance." Science Translational Medicine. 9, eaah3560 (2017). (Research Highlight in Immunotherapy: “Genomic and immunological features predict a response” by Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology)
Pei-Ling Chen*, Whijae Roh*, Alexandre Reuben, Zachary A. Cooper, Christine N. Spencer, Peter A. Prieto, John P. Miller, Roland L. Bassett, Vancheswaran Gopalakrishnan, Khalida Wani, Mariana Petaccia De Macedo, Jacob L. Austin-Breneman, Hong Jiang, Qing Chang, Sangeetha M. Reddy, Wei-Shen Chen, Michael T. Tetzlaff, Russell J. Broaddus, Michael A. Davies, Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, Lauren Haydu, Alexander J. Lazar, Sapna P. Patel, Patrick Hwu, Wen-Jen Hwu, Adi Diab, Isabella C. Glitza, Scott E. Woodman, Luis M. Vence, Ignacio I. Wistuba, Rodabe N. Amaria, Lawrence N. Kwong, Victor Prieto, R. Eric Davis, Wencai Ma, Willem W. Overwijk, Arlene H. Sharpe, Jianhua Hu, P. Andrew Futreal, Jorge Blando, Padmanee Sharma, James P. Allison, Lynda Chin and Jennifer A. Wargo, "Analysis of immune signatures in longitudinal tumor samples yields insight into biomarkers of response and mechanisms of resistance to immune checkpoint blockade." Cancer Discovery 6, no. 8 (2016): 827-837.
Koichi Takahashi*, Whijae Roh*, Jianhua Zhang, Alexei Propotopov, Keyur Patel, Stephen Strickland, Annette Kim, Cindy Vnencak-Jones, Sarah Pelletier, Simrit Parmar, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, Steven Kornblau, Lynda Chin, Hagop Kantarjian, P. Andrew Futreal, Farhad Ravandi, "Clonal evolution of acute myeloid leukemia relapsed after 19 years of remission." American Journal of Hematology 90, no. 7 (2015): E134-E135.
Yong Wang, Jill Waters, Marco L. Leung, Anna Unruh, Whijae Roh, Xiuqing Shi, Ken Chen, Paul Scheet, Selina Vattathil, Han Liang, Asha Multani, Hong Zhang, Rui Zhao, Franziska Michor, Funda Meric-Bernstam, and Nicholas E. Navin*. "Clonal evolution in breast cancer revealed by single nucleus genome sequencing." Nature 512, no. 7513 (2014): 155-160.
Ju-Hee Lee*, Ji-Hyun Yeon*, Hanna Kim, Whijae Roh, Jeiwook Chae, Han-Oh Park, and Dong-Myung Kim*. "The Natural Anticancer Agent Plumbagin Induces Potent Cytotoxicity in MCF-7 Human Breast Cancer Cells by Inhibiting a PI-5 Kinase for ROS Generation." PLOS ONE 7, no. 9 (2012): e45023.
Tomoyuki Uchida*, K. L. Mills*, Chuan-Hsien Kuo, Whijae Roh, Yi-Chung Tung, Amanda L. Garner, Kazunori Koide, M. D. Thouless*, and Shuichi Takayama*. "External compression-induced fracture patterning on the surface of poly (dimethylsiloxane) cubes and microspheres." Langmuir 25, no. 5 (2009): 3102-3107.
Genomic Data Analysis
TCGA data (multi-omics, clinical), Dependency Map data (genetic dependency, drug screening, CCLE omics data), DNA-seq, bulk/single-cell RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq, TCR-seq, multi- dimensional data visualization, development of NGS computational pipelines, FireCloud/Terra (genomic analysis on the cloud)
Statistical Analysis
Statistical softwares
R (14 Yrs.), SAS (2 Yrs.), Matlab (2 Yrs.)
Statistical methods
Generalized Linear Model, Mixed Models, Multiple Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Survival Analysis, Power analysis, Statistical Machine Learning algorithm (perceptron learning algorithm, neural network, K- means clustering, support vector machine, random forest, cross-validation)
Programming
Languages : Python (3 Yrs.), C/C++ (2 Yrs.), JAVA (1 Yr.), Ruby (1 Yr.), XML
Database : MySQL, XQuery
Web Programming : HTML, CSS, jQuery, Shiny (web application framework for R), CGI, SOAP
Wet Lab Techniques
Cloning, cell culture, and confocal microscope operation, microfluidics (MEMS microfabrication, PDMS manipulation technique)
CPRIT Graduate Scholar Award, 2015 - 2016
Fellowship for exceptional predoctoral students in cancer‐related fields
CPRIT Graduate Scholar Co-mentor : James Allison, Ph.D.
American Legion Auxiliary Fellowship, 2015
Fellowship for students early in their graduate training whose research is related to the understanding and treatment of cancer