Faculty

Research Description:Our lab is interested in Systems Biology of gene regulation. Within this broadly-defined research area, we focus most of our effort on understanding gene regulatory networks and molecular pathways that give rise to 1) stem cell phenotype (self-renewal and pluripotency); and 2) human diseases. Towards this goal, we are conducting both computational and experimental research. Our first project is aimed at understanding gene regulatory network in stem cells. We are developing novel tools to model gene regulatory networks at multiple level, including signal transduction, transcriptional regulation, and epigenetic regulation. Specifically, we are working on the following projects: i) Identifying transcriptional enhancers that control cell-type/tissue-specific gene expression. This is a combined computational and experimental project. We are developing computational tools to predict cell-type specific enhancers as well as high throughput experimental assays to validate our computational predictions and to generate new input data to train our computational methods. ii) Modeling the combinatorial effects of transcription factor binding, nucleosome occupancy, and chromatin modifications on gene expression. iii) Integrating multiple types of interactome data to discover novel regulatory pathways. Our second project is focused on using molecular interaction networks as a tool to link genotypes with disease phenotypes. Molecular interaction networks are increasingly serving as powerful tools to unravel the basis of human diseases. We are developing network-based approaches to identifying new disease genes and disease-related sub-networks. We are particularly interested in cancers and metabolic diseases.