Dr. Vivian Y. Chang is a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. She developed an interest in cancer predisposition during fellowship while working on genomic characterization of congenital acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Dr. Stanley Nelson’s lab, where she learned the workflow for analyzing next-generation sequence data as well as wet-lab techniques in the lab of co-mentor Dr. Kathleen Sakamoto. She also completed a Masters program in Bioinformatics at UCLA with courses in genomic technology, advanced human genetics, and seminars on advanced methods in computational biology and genomics. Since joining UCLA as a faculty member in 2012, Dr. Chang established one of the first multidisciplinary genomics clinics with colleagues in genetics, in order to provide comprehensive care to patients with or suspected to have genetic cancer susceptibility. She was part of the American Association of Cancer Research Pediatric Cancer Working Group workshop on pediatric cancer predisposition and surveillance. She co-authored three position articles on surveillance recommendations for disorders with rare DNA repair defects, Neurofibromatosis Type 1 and 2. Her research lab focuses on the bone marrow microenvironment and its role in injury and leukemia susceptibility, as well as rare genetic syndromes associated with increased leukemia risk.
