Draft:Decai Yu

Decai Yu (余德才; born August 1977) is a Chinese hepatobiliary surgeon and medical researcher. He is the chief physician and head of the Department of Hepatobiliary and Liver Transplantation Surgery at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, a professor and doctoral supervisor at Nanjing University School of Medicine, and deputy Party secretary of the General Surgery Division of the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Group. His clinical work focuses on the surgical and multidisciplinary treatment of hepatobiliary tumors, laparoscopic and robot-assisted hepatobiliary surgery, anatomical liver resection, and liver transplantation; his research centres on metabolic reprogramming in liver cancer, biotherapy, prediction of systemic-therapy response, and minimally invasive liver surgery techniques.

Decai Yu

Education and training

Yu graduated from Nanjing University with a doctoral degree in surgery, and holds a master's degree in clinical research from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in the United States. He subsequently trained at the Department of Surgery, Liver Disease Research Centre, University of Hong Kong (September 2007 – March 2008); the Transplant Center of MUSC (July 2011 – August 2012); and the Liver Transplantation Center of Asan Medical Center in South Korea (August–September 2017).

Career

Yu joined the Department of General Surgery at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital in August 2002, serving successively as resident physician (August 2002 – August 2006), attending physician (September 2006 – August 2009), and associate chief physician (October 2012 – December 2018), before being appointed chief physician in January 2019. He was an associate professor at Nanjing University from 2014 to June 2019, became a doctoral supervisor in June 2016, and was appointed professor at Nanjing University in July 2019. He has served as deputy director of the Development Office of the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Group since June 2020, deputy president (on secondment) of Nanjing Central Hospital, part of the Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Group, since December 2020, deputy Party secretary of the Group's General Surgery Division since November 2022, and head of the Department of Hepatobiliary and Liver Transplantation Surgery at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital since June 2023.

Clinical and research focus

Yu's clinical practice covers the surgical and multidisciplinary treatment of hepatobiliary tumors; the diagnosis and treatment of hepatobiliary conditions such as gallstones and hepatic hemangioma; laparoscopic and robot-assisted hepatectomy and biliary surgery; and liver transplantation; his team has proposed anatomical liver resection approaches centred on the Laennec approach, the caudate lobe, and hepatic vein priority.

His research focuses on metabolic reprogramming in hepatocellular carcinoma and other hepatobiliary tumors, biotherapy and immunotherapy, prediction of systemic-therapy response, and fatty-acid metabolism-based molecular subtyping of liver cancer; his team has studied metabolic enzymes including GOT2, XOR, GLS1, PLAGL2 and OGDHL, and contributed to a multi-omics molecular subtyping of hepatocellular carcinoma based on fatty-acid degradation pathways. He has been the principal investigator on five grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and five provincial- or municipal-level research projects, and has published more than 100 papers in journals including Hepatology, Cancer Research and Gut.

Selected publications

• Wang Y, Cheng C, Lu Y, et al. "β-Catenin Activation Reprograms Ammonia Metabolism to Promote Senescence Resistance in Hepatocellular Carcinoma." Cancer Research, 2024, 84(10): 1643–1658.
• Li B, Li Y, Zhou H, et al. "Multiomics identifies metabolic subtypes based on fatty acid degradation allocating personalized treatment in hepatocellular carcinoma." Hepatology, 2024, 79(2): 289–306.
• Jiang X, Peng J, Xie Y, et al. "Oxoglutarate dehydrogenase-like inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by inducing DNA damage through non-canonical function." Cell Death & Differentiation, 2023, 30(8): 1931–1942.
• Li Y, Li B, Xu Y, et al. "GOT2 Silencing Promotes Reprogramming of Glutamine Metabolism and Sensitizes Hepatocellular Carcinoma to Glutaminase Inhibitors." Cancer Research, 2022, 82(18): 3223–3235.
• Hu W, Zheng S, Guo H, et al. "PLAGL2–EGFR–HIF-1/2α Signaling Loop Promotes HCC Progression and Erlotinib Insensitivity." Hepatology, 2021, 73(2): 674–691.
• Sun Q, Zhang Z, Lu Y, et al. "Loss of Xanthine Oxidoreductase Potentiates Propagation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Stem Cells." Hepatology, 2020, 71(6): 2033–2049.
• Li B, Cao Y, Meng G, et al. "Targeting glutaminase 1 attenuates stemness properties in hepatocellular carcinoma by increasing reactive oxygen species and suppressing Wnt/beta-catenin pathway." eBioMedicine, 2019, 39: 239–254.
• Lai SS, Zhao DD, Cao P, et al. "PP2Acα positively regulates the termination of liver regeneration in mice through the AKT/GSK3β/Cyclin D1 pathway." Journal of Hepatology, 2016, 64(2): 352–360.
• Yu D, Sun X, Qiu Y, et al. "Identification and clinical significance of mobilized endothelial progenitor cells in tumor vasculogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma." Clinical Cancer Research, 2007, 13(13): 3814–3824.

This list is compiled from Yu's Google Scholar profile and the corresponding journal and PubMed pages.

Books

• Yu, Decai; Sun, Xitai (eds.). Laparoscopic Hepatectomy: Glissonean Pedicle Anatomical Approach. China Medical Audio-Visual Press, 2021.
• Yu, Decai (ed.). Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: Theory and Practice. Jiangsu Phoenix Audio-Visual Press, 2022.

Awards and honours

• Talent of the 7th phase, second tier, of Jiangsu Province's "333 Project"
• Key Medical Talent of Jiangsu Province's 12th and 13th Five-Year "Science and Education for Health" Programme; High-level Talent of Jiangsu's "Six Talent Peaks" Programme
• Second Prize for Introduction of New Medical Technology, Jiangsu Province (2020; first-ranked recipient)
• First Prize, Jiangsu Provincial Science and Technology Award (2021; team project, ranked 6th of 11)
• First Prize, Jiangsu Anti-Cancer Association Science and Technology Award (2024; first-ranked recipient)

Professional affiliations

Yu is a member of the International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA), and holds committee positions with the Chinese Medical Doctor Association's liver cancer specialty committee (2024–2027), the China Anti-Cancer Association's liver cancer specialty committee (2024–2027), the Jiangsu Anti-Cancer Association's tumor metabolism specialty committee, which he chairs (2023–2026), and the Jiangsu Medical Association's organ transplantation branch, where he serves as deputy chair (2025–2028). He also serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including as a corresponding editorial board member of the Chinese Journal of Digestive Surgery.