Kun-Liang Guan

Kun-Liang Guan at UCSD has made major contributions to understanding the Hippo signaling pathway — a key tumor suppressor pathway controlling organ size and cancer development. His work establishing YAP and TAZ as downstream effectors of the Hippo pathway, demonstrating their role as potent oncoproteins when the pathway is inactivated, and defining LATS kinase as the pathway's tumor suppressive core, has revealed a signaling axis relevant across multiple cancer types.