Kendra Yum
Papers
2
Total Citations
145
H-Index
2
About
Kendra Yum is a trailblazer in the field of personalized oncology, specializing in rare and difficult-to-treat cancers. Her research is defined by the innovative use of living organisms as drug-screening platforms to identify tailored therapies for individual patients. Yum’s most impactful work, published in 2019 (107 citations), introduced a groundbreaking personalized platform using *Drosophila* (fruit flies) to screen drug combinations. This approach identified trametinib plus zoledronate as an effective treatment for a patient with KRAS-mutant metastatic colorectal cancer, leading to a significant 11-month partial response. She further validated this strategy in 2021 (38 citations) by successfully applying the same *Drosophila* platform to discover a novel therapy for a patient with adenoid cystic carcinoma, a rare salivary gland cancer with limited treatment options. By demonstrating that fly avatars can rapidly and cost-effectively guide clinical decisions for aggressive malignancies, Yum has pioneered a transformative method for precision medicine. Her work offers new hope for patients with cancers that lack standard therapies, establishing her as a leader in translational oncology and personalized therapeutics.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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