Ru Chih Huang

Ru Chih Huang is a McElroy Honorary Research Professor at the Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, with contact details including rhuang@jhu.edu and lab phone 410-516-7314 in 250 Levi Hall.

Research Interests: Gene regulation, molecular virology, retrotransposition, chromosomal structure and function. Specific foci include:

• Hypoxia-targeted therapies for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using nitroimidazoles conjugated to trimethyl NDGA
• Synergistic anticancer strategies combining tetra-O-methyl NDGA (M4N/terameprocol) with protein kinase inhibitors
• Development of natural product-derived HIV integrase inhibitors (lithospermic acid) for combination therapy
• Engineering a prokaryotic expression system for high-throughput proteomics via temperature-sensitive plasmid replication

Future Directions: Planned studies include mouse model testing of NDGA-nitroimidazole conjugates for HCC, mechanistic investigations of M4N-drug synergies in cancer, and expanding the proteomics platform for systematic screening. His lab also continues to explore molecular mechanisms of antiviral compounds in HIV therapy.