My research areas include cellular mechanisms in healthy and diseased livers and method development for single-cell and spatial transcriptomic data analysis.
I like all kinds of mysteries, and among them, I am most intrigued by the balance between the robustness and adaptivity of biological systems. Why did some organisms evolve and adapt to environmental change while others didn’t? How do perturbations breach the robustness of biological processes and potentially lead to diseases? Questions like this have always fascinated me.
My current research aims to understand how cells communicate with each other and how these interactions guide normal biological processes and direct development. Conversely, how do disrupted interaction patterns contribute to disease?
My past research work includes a tissue positional system for automatically discovering and annotating tissue patterns from liver images using deep learning and the state-of-the-art algorithm (Sprod) for noise reduction in spatial transcriptomic data using both image information and spatial proximity.
I've been a researcher in biomedical informatics for over five years and began working at Cincinnati Children's in 2023. My research has been published in journals such as Science, Cell, Nature Methods and Nature Cancer.
BS: Bioengineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning, China, 2009.
MS: Immunobiology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 2012.
PhD: Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine (Bioinformatics), University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 2018.
Gastroenterology
Bioinformatics; spatial transcriptomics; single-cell transcriptomics
Gastroenterology Hepatology and Nutrition
UBE2J1 is the E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme regulating androgen receptor degradation and antiandrogen resistance. Oncogene: Including Oncogene Reviews. 2024; 43:265-280.
Endothelial cells differentiated from patient dermal fibroblast-derived induced pluripotent stem cells resemble vascular malformations of port-wine birthmark. British Journal of Dermatology. 2023; 189:780-783.
Abstract 14173: Generation and Characterization of Clinically Relevant Disease Models for Port Wine Birthmark Using Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells. Circulation. 2023; 148:a14173.
Perturbations of Glutathione and Sphingosine Metabolites in Port Wine Birthmark Patient-Derived Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells. Metabolites. 2023; 13.
Loss of SYNCRIP unleashes APOBEC-driven mutagenesis, tumor heterogeneity, and AR-targeted therapy resistance in prostate cancer. Cancer Cell. 2023; 41:1427-1449.e12.
IGFBP2 expressing midlobular hepatocytes preferentially contribute to liver homeostasis and regeneration. Cell Stem Cell. 2023; 30:665-676.e4.
Positive selection of somatically mutated clones identifies adaptive pathways in metabolic liver disease. Cell. 2023; 186:1968-1984.e20.
Netie: inferring the evolution of neoantigen-T cell interactions in tumors. Nature Methods. 2022; 19:1480-1489.
Arid1a loss potentiates pancreatic β-cell regeneration through activation of EGF signaling. Cell Reports. 2022; 41:111581.
A multi-omic analysis of MCF10A cells provides a resource for integrative assessment of ligand-mediated molecular and phenotypic responses. Communications Biology. 2022; 5:1066.