Derek Wong, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Children's Hospital of PhiladelphiaPerelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Contact Information3401 Civic Center Blvd.
Philadelphia, PA, 19104
Email: wongd3@chop.edu
Research Expertise
My research expertise and interests are focussed on 1) rapid tumor diagnostics using multi-modal approaches and emerging technologies and 2) leveraging the underlying tumor biology and advancements in bioinformatic technologies to extract the most information from cell-free DNA.
Clinical Expertise
My clinical duties are within the Division of Genomic Diagnostics where I use my expertise in molecular oncology to aid in the diagnosis of pediatric tumors. I am also the Assistant Director of Cancer Genomics within the Center for Diagnostic Innovation where I lead the development and clinical validation of molecular assays for precision medicine.
Education
B.Sc. (General Life Science), University of British Columbia , 2013
Ph.D. (Pathology and Laboratory Medicine), University of British Columbia , 2020
Specialty Certification
Postgraduate Training
Post-doctoral Fellow, Cancer Genomics, Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto, Canada, 2021-2023
Fellow, Laboratory Genetics and Genomics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, United States, 2023-2025
Awards and Honors
Faculty of Medicine Graduate Award, 2015
Morrison H. Finlayson Award, 2016
Translational Cancer Genomics Award, 2017
Masayuki Hashimoto Memorial Award, 2019
Princess Margaret Post-doctoral Award, 2021
Young Investigator’s Award – Children’s Tumor Foundation, 2022
Princess Margaret Cancer Digital Intelligence SPARK Award, 2022
Canadian Institutes for Health Research Post-doctoral Fellowship, 2022
2023 Till and McCulloch Paper of the Year - Translational Award by Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, 2024
Memberships and Professional Organizations
American College of Medical Genetics, 2022 - Present
Association for Molecular Pathology, 2024 - Present
American Society of Human Genetics, 2024 - Present
Web Links
Selected Publications
Early Cancer Detection in Li-Fraumeni Syndrome with Cell-Free DNA
Derek Wong, Ping Luo, Leslie Oldfield, Haifan Gong, Ledia Brunga, Ron Rabinowicz, Vallijah Subasri, Clarissa Chan, Tiana Downs, Kirsten M Farncombe, Beatrice Luu, Maia Norman, Jenna Eagles, Stephenie Pederson, Johanna Wellum, Arnavaz Danesh, Stephenie Prokopec, Eric Zhao, Nadia Znassi, Bernard Lam, Kayla Marsh, Yogi Sundaravadanam, Dax Torti, David Malkin, Raymond H Kim, Trevor J Pugh., Cancer Discovery, 2024, PMID:37874259
Cell-free DNA from germline TP53 mutation carriers reflect cancer-like fragmentation patterns.
Derek Wong, Ping Luo, Vallijah Subasri, Leslie Oldfield, Haifan Gong, Nicholas Fischer, Brianne Laverty, Raymond H Kim, David Malkin, Trevor J Pugh, Nature Communications 15(): 7386, 2024
Early changes in tumor-naive cell-free methylomes and fragmentomes predict outcomes in patients with solid tumors treated with pembrolizumab
Eric Y Stutheit-Zhao, Enrique Sanz Garcia, Zhihui Liu, Derek Wong, Kayla Marsh, Albiruni Razak, Anna Spreafico, Philippe Bedard, Aaron Hansen, Stephanie L’heureux, Dax Torti, Bernard Lam, Richard Jovelin, Lawrence Heisler, Morgan Taschuk, Cindy Yang, Justin Burgener. Scott V Bratman, Pamela Ohashi, Trevor J Pugh, Lillian L Siu, Cancer Discovery 14(6): 1048-1063, 2024, PMID:38393391
Identifying mechanisms of resistance by circulating tumour DNA in EVOLVE, a phase II trial of Cediranib plus Olaparib for ovarian cancer at time of PARP inhibitor progression
Stephanie Lheureux, Stephenie D Prokopec, Leslie E. Oldfield, Eduardo Gonzalez-Ochoa, Jeffrey P Bruce, Derek Wong, Arnavaz Danesh, Dax Torti, Jonathan Torchia, Alexander Fortuna, Sharanjit Singh, Matthew Irving, Kayla Marsh, Bernard Lam, Ana Oaknin, Ainhoa Madariaga, Neesha C Dhani, Valerie Bowering, Amit M Oza, Trevor J Pugh, Clinical Cancer Research 29(18): 3706-3716, 2023, PMID:37327320
Current and new frontiers in hereditary cancer surveillance: opportunities for liquid biopsy
Kirsten M Farncombe, Derek Wong, Maia L Norman, Leslie E Oldfield, Mark Basik, Yvonne Bombard, Victoria Carile, Lesa Dawson, William D Foulkes, David Malkin, Aly Karsan, Patricia Parkin, Lynette S Penney, Aaron Pollett, Kasmintan A Schrader, Trevor J Pugh, Raymond H Kim on behalf of the CHARM consortium, The American Journal of Human Genetics 110(10): 1616-1627, 2023, PMID:37802042
Rapid brain tumor classification from sparse epigenomic data
Björn Brändl, Mara Steiger, Caroline Kubelt, Christian Rohrandt, Maximilian Evers, Gaojianyong Wang, Bernhard Schuldt, Martin Pröscholdt, Markus J Riemenschneider, Ulrich Schüller, Derek Wong, Amy Lum, Skarphedinn Halldorsson, Luna Djirackor, Romulas Smičius, Gelareh Zadeh, Einar O. Vik-Mo, Alexander Meissner, Ole Ammerpohl, Stephen Yip, Michael Synowitz, Alena van Boemmel, Helene Kretzmer, and Franz-Josef Müller, Nature Medicine, 2024
Integrated multi-omics drive precision cancer care for pediatric CNS tumors: An institutional study of 582 tumors.
Derek Wong, American Society for Human Genetics, Denver, CO, 2024
Identification of TP53 germline variants in pediatric patients undergoing tumor testing: strategy and prevalence
Minjie Luo, Derek Wong, Kristin Zelley, Jinhua Wu, Jeffery Schubert, Netta Golenberg, Maha Patel, Elizabeth H Denenberg, Elizabeth A Fanning, Jiani Chen, Daniel Gallo, Tammy Luke, Sarah Charles, Kara Maxwell, Laura Conlin, Gerald B Wertheim, Lea Surrey, Yiming Zhong, Garrett M Brodeur, Suzanne P Macfarland, Marilyn M Li, Journal of the National Cancer Institute 116(8): 1356-1365, 2024, PMID:38702830
Genomic profiling of pediatric hematologic malignancies and diagnosis of cancer predisposition syndromes: tumor-only versus paired tumor-normal sequencing
Haley Newman, Mary Egan Clark, Derek Wong, Jinhua Wu, Garrett M. Brodeur, Stephen P. Hunger, Sarah K. Tasian, Timothy Olson, Julia T. Warren, David T. Teachey, Kira Bona, Jeffrey Schubert, Netta Golenberg, Maha Patel, Elizabeth H. Denenberg, Elizabeth A. Fanning, Jiani Chen, Tamara Luke, Sarah Charles, Daniel Gallo, Kajia Cao, Weixuan Fu, Zhiqian Fan, Lea F. Surrey, Gerald Wertheim, Minjie Luo, Suzanne P. MacFarland, Marilyn M. Li, and Yiming Zhong, Hematologica 109(9): 3024-3030, 2024, PMID:38385299
Machine Learning Classifies Cancer
Derek Wong, Stephen Yip, Nature 555(7697): 446-447, 2018, PMID:29565394
