Dr. Gangning Liang is a Professor of Department of Urology and Director of Epigenetic Translational Research of USC Institute of Urology at Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. He obtained his MD degree from Shanghai Second Medical School in 1985 and received PhD degree from Department of Pharmaceutical Science in University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1995. He was appointed Assistant Professor in 1998, Associate Professor in 2008, and Professor in 2016 in USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. He completed a postdoctoral training in Epigenetics with Dr. Peter A. Jones 1995-1998 at USC. His research interests include investigating epigenome structures, epigenomic alterations during tumorigenesis, and epigenetic alterations induced by drug treatment in cancer therapies. As PI, multiple-PI, and co-Investigator over 10 NIH-funded grants, his research has laid the groundwork for the proposed research project including the roles of DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) and microRNAs during tumorigenesis and novel methods of characterizing epigenetic changes and monitoring these changes in patients. In this regard, he has identified epigenetic alterations in urine sediments for bladder cancer-based diagnostic and prognostic purposes, more recently he also is also developing similar assay in kidney and prostate cancer, as well as introducing epigenetic therapy for cancer treatment in preclinical models. He is currently using these techniques and models, which he developed, to not only to further study the role of epigenetic regulation during tumorigenesis, but also to establish new translational projects that directly address clinical questions. He is focusing on his translational research to use epigenetic alteration as foundation to identify drug targets in a selective and predictable way for precision cancer medicine and to improve in patient survival and quality of life. He published extensively in journals including Cell, Cancer Cell, Molecular Cell, Genome Research, Hepatology, Nature Communications, Genome Biology, PNAS, Cancer Research, and Oncogene with over 100 peer reviewed articles.