Education

2012–2017 Zhejiang University, China, Ph.D.
2009–2012 Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, M.S.
2005–2009 Qingdao Agricultural University, China, B.S.

Work experience

2022-present Principal Investigator at Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, China
2022-present Principal Investigator at Zhongshan-Xuhui Hospital, Fudan University, China
2018-2022 Postdoctoral Scholar Employee at University of California, San Diego, USA

Contact

Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032

Email: suhua@fudan.edu.cn

Biography

Dr. Hua Su conducted his Ph.D. training at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Zhejiang University. The results of his Ph.D. work are described in two outstanding research papers in Molecular Cell, one of the top cell biology and biochemistry journals. In one paper, on which he is the first author, Hua showed that VPS34 lysine acetylation by the acetyltransferase p300 controls VPS34 lipid kinase activity, thereby affecting the initiation of autophagy. The other paper to which he made a major contribution represents a very important and innovative study showing that the energy sensor AMPK activates autophagy through the phosphorylation of GAPDH. During his postdoctoral training in Dr. Michael Karin's laboratory at University of California, San Diego, Dr. Su was able to fully explain how autophagy-deficient tumor survival and in doing so, had discovered inhibition of either the initiation or the termination phases of autophagy results in activation of a different cancer cell survival and nutrient procurement pathway, macropinocytosis (MP). Importantly, he identified the mechanism through which autophagy-inhibited cancer cells turn on MP and shown it to depend on NRF2-mediated transcriptional activation. Moreover, he had shown that the combined inhibition of autophagy and MP results in the almost complete regression of mouse and human pancreatic cancers. These results have been published in the prestigious journal Cancer Cell. Dr. Su also studied how cancer cell metabolism is affected by the extracellular matrix (ECM). He started by testing whether collagen 1 (Col I), the major ECM component, is a substrate for MP, but soon made the truly amazing discovery that the ration of intact Col I fibers to Col I fragments generated by matrix metalloproteases is a key regulator of cancer cell metabolism. This applies not only to MP but also to mitochondrial biogenesis and bioenergetics. Although the basic studies of Dr. Su were carried out in mice and a novel culture system in which PDAC cells are plated on ECM that contains either cleaved or uncleaved Col I, the relative amounts of cleaved vs. uncleaved Col I in the PDAC stroma has a huge impact on patient survival after surgical resection. Patients whose tumors were enriched in cleaved Col I and whose cancerous cells expressed high levels of DDR1 did poorly with most of them succumbing to PDAC within 2 years after resection. This work is of importance because it provides a simple way for patient stratification and suggests that patients with high levels of cleaved Col I and DDR1 expression need more aggressive post-surgery treatments. These results have been published in the top journal Nature. In 2022, Dr. Su took the faculty position at Fudan University in Shanghai and established a research laboratory focus on tumor microenvironment and tumor metabolism.

Dr. Su is currently the Guest Associate Editor for Frontiers in Veterinary Infectious Diseases journal, member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR),member of American pancreatic Association (APA) and member of American Chinese Society for Biological Sciences (SCBA). During his career, he has received many awards, including National Scholarship (2007, 2015, 2016); Roche Education Award for Excellence in Research (2017).Shanghai Leading Talent Project, 2022; National Natural Science Foundation--Outstanding Youth Project, 2022.

Research Areas

Tumor microenviroment and metabolism

Research interest

Mechanism of macropinocytosis initiation and its role in tumor development
Functions of collagen in tumor development and tumor immunity
Tumorigenesis and tumor metabolism of desmoplastic cancer (PDAC, iCCA)

Selected Publications

Zihang Yuan, Bo Lin, Chunlan Wang, Zhaoyue Yan, Fei Yang*, Hua Su*, Collagen remodeling-mediated signaling pathways and their impact on tumor therapy. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 2025 Feb 19.
Haokang Feng, Zhixue Chen, Jianang Li, Jiale Feng, Fei Yang, Fansheng Meng, Hanlin Yin, Yuquan Guo, Huaxiang Xu, Yuxin Liu, Runjie Liu, Wenhui Lou, Liang Liu*, Hua Su*, Lei Zhang*, Unveiling Circulating Targets in Pancreatic Cancer: Insights from Proteogenomic Evidence and Clinical Cohorts. iScience, 2025 Jan 20.
Hua Su*, Michael Karin*, Multifaceted collagen-DDR1 signaling in cancer. Trends in Cell Biology, 2024 May;34(5):406-415.
Hua Su*, Michael Karin*, Collagen architecture and signaling orchestrate cancer development. Trends in Cancer, 2023 Sep; 9(9):764-773.
Hua Su, Fei Yang, Rao Fu, Brittney Trinh, Nina Sun, Junlai Liu, Avi Kumar, Jacopo Baglieri, Na Sinchai, Jeremy Siruno, Stephen Dozier, Ajay Nair, Aveline Filliol, Sara Brin Rosenthal, Jennifer Santini, Christian M. Metallo, Anthony Molina, Robert F. Schwabe, Andrew M. Lowy, David Brenner, Beicheng Sun*, and Michael Karin,* Collagenolysis-dependent DDR1 signaling dictates pancreatic cancer outcome. Nature,2022 Oct; 610(7931):366-372. (Highlight by Cancer Cell)
Hua Su, Fei Yang, Rao Fu, Xin Li, Randall French, Evangeline Mose, Xiaohong Pu, Brittney Trinh, Avi Kumar, Junlai Liu, Laura Antonucci, Jelena Todoric, Yuan Liu, Yinling Hu, Maria T. Diaz-Meco, Jorge Moscat, Christian M. Metallo, Andrew M. Lowy, Beicheng Sun,* and Michael Karin*, Cancer cells escape autophagy inhibition via NRF2-induced macropinocytosis. Cancer Cell, 2021 May 10; 39(5):678-693. (Preview by Cancer Cell, Highlight by Cancer Discovery).
Hua Su, Fei Yang, Beicheng Sun, Michael Karin*, Macropinocytosis: the big drinker behind cancer cell self-consumption. Autophagy, 2021 May;17(5):1290-1291.
Hua Su, Fei Yang, Qiuting Wang, Qiuhong Shen, Jingtao Huang, Chao Peng, Yi Zhang, Wei Wan, Qiming Sun, Catherine C.L. Wong, Tianhua Zhou, and Wei Liu*, Acetylation of VPS34 Controls the Initiation of Canonical and Non-canonical Autophagy. Molecular Cell, 2017 67(6):907-921.（Highlight by Nature Cell Biology）.
Hua Su, and Wei Liu*, PIK3C3/VPS34 Control by Acetylation. Autophagy, 2018, 14(6):1086-1087.
Chunmei Chang, Hua Su, Danhong Zhang, Yusha Wang, Qiuhong Shen, Bo Liu, Rui Huang, Tianhua Zhou, Chao Peng, Catherine C.L. Wong, Han-Ming Shen, Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, and Wei Liu*, AMPK-Dependent Phosphorylation of GAPDH Triggers Sirt1 Activation and Is Necessary for Autophagy upon Glucose Starvation. Molecular Cell, 2015 60(6): 930-940.