Dr. H. Josh Jang investigates combining epigenetic therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors to enhance the immune system’s ability to better fight cancer.

He earned his B.S. in health promotion and disease prevention from University of Southern California and his Ph.D. in molecular genetics and genomics from Washington University in St. Louis. During his graduate studies in the lab of Dr. Ting Wang, Dr. Jang concentrated on characterizing transposable elements’ contribution to oncogenic potential in cancer cell line models, as well as other projects that established and optimized targeted epigenetic technologies using CRISPR-Cas9 technology.

In 2020, Dr. Jang joined Van Andel Institute as a VAI Fellow under Drs. Peter A. Jones and Stephen B. Baylin. He has received several prestigious awards for his research including a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence grant and a SPORE Epigenetic Therapies: Career Enhancement Program Award, both from the National Cancer Institute.

Dr. Jang also serves as a reviewer for leading journals such as Nature Genetics, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and Genome Research, among others. In 2021, he was selected as a Forbeck Scholar and, in 2023, he chaired the Gordon Research Seminar for Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics.

In 2025, Dr. Jang joined Van Andel Institute’s Department of Cell Biology as an assistant professor. He leverages innovative -omics technologies, such as single-cell, spatial and long-read sequencing methods to interrogate how the tumor microenvironment responds to therapy.