Dr. Lan is an Associate Professor at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Lan's work is primarily focused on 1) understanding how cancer cells respond to DNA damage and oxidative/replication stresses through DNA repair and damage signaling pathways; and 2) developing new strategies to target these pathways in cancer therapy. In her MD. PhD. work in Japan, she established the first laser micro-irradiation system to induce localized DNA damage in a single nucleus and investigated how DNA single-strand breaks are repaired through a PARP-regulated pathway. Her work and that of others have elucidated the role of PARP in DNA repair, which helped to bring PARP inhibitors to the treatment of breast, ovarian and other cancers in the clinic. She became an independent investigator at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute in 2011, and was promoted to a tenured Associated Professor in 2018. She transitioned to MGH, Harvard in 2018 and moved to Duke University School of Medicine in 2023. To understand the oxidative DNA damage response in different chromosomal environments, her lab developed the first molecular assay to study the oxidative damage response at specific chromosomal loci. Her lab also discovered and delineated that a novel mRNA-dependent DNA repair pathway protects the transcribed regions of the genome, which contributes to PARP inhibitor resistance in cancer therapy. The findings from her lab have generated a new paradigm in the DNA repair field, influencing the research of many laboratories around the world. Her work has led to discoveries of new therapeutic targets and biomarkers in ovarian and breast cancers. Several patent applications have been filed and published from her lab, which could significantly improve the treatment of ovarian and breast cancers in the near future.