Pengcheng Rao
Researcher at the West China Hospital of Stomatology in Chengdu who led a genome-wide CRISPR screen showing that switching off mTOR can help cancer cells tolerate cisplatin
State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University (papers with Xiaodong Feng, 2025–2026; at the time of the study)
Pengcheng Rao was first author of the 2026 Atlas study on cisplatin tolerance (RAO2026). Cisplatin is a platinum chemotherapy drug used against many cancers, including cancers of the head and neck. Using a genome-wide CRISPR screen, which knocks out genes one at a time across the whole genome, the team asked which genes change how well cancer cells survive the drug. Blocking mTOR, the growth-control kinase, helped the cells survive, because it turned on autophagy, a recycling process that protected them. The amino acid transporter SLC7A5 linked nutrient supply to this response, and giving extra leucine, one of the amino acids it carries, made SLC7A5-expressing tumour cells sensitive to cisplatin again. This was shown in cancer cells and tumour models, not in patients.
Rao also appears, with Xiaodong Feng as a co-author, on a 2025 paper from the same State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases on how stressed gum-lining cells drive inflammation in periodontitis. No personal page was found, so the position shown is the affiliation on the Atlas paper.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | M | An SLC7A5-dependent nutrient-sensing circuit overcomes cisplatin tolerance via mTOR-autophagy signaling. RAO2026 First author: ran the genome-wide CRISPR screen showing that mTOR inhibition promotes cisplatin tolerance through autophagy and that leucine can reverse it in SLC7A5-expressing cells. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 1
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Pengcheng Rao.
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- Xiaodong Feng Researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases in Chengdu whose group studies how cells in the mouth respond to stress, from chemotherapy tolerance in oral cancer to inflammation in gum disease
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