Harnessing big data for precision oncology

About this Class

For our next CDSL webinar we will have a guest lecture by Dr. Leng Han from the Center for Epigenetics and Disease Prevention at Texas A&M University. Abstract: Despite advancements in treatment options for cancer, a majority of cancer types continue to lack fully characterized and effective targeted therapies to improve disease diagnostics, prognoses, and patient survival outcomes. Therefore, there is an urgent need to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the molecular basis of diseases and develop novel prognostic and therapeutic strategies. Our lab utilizes cutting-edge techniques in systems biology to understand the molecular mechanisms of complex diseases. We have comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms of novel transcriptomic elements in human diseases (Trends in Cancer, 2018), including QTL (Nucleic Acids Research, 2018; Nucleic Acids Research, 2019a; Nucleic Acids Research, 2019b), snoRNA (Cell Reports, 2017, Molecular Cancer, 2020), APA (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2018; Nucleic Acids Research, 2020), circRNA (Genome Medicine, 2019a; Genome Medicine, 2019b) and eRNA (Nature Communications, 2019; Nucleic Acids Research, 2021; Cancer Research, 2022). We pioneered a series of pan-cancer analyses to provide clinical insights into cancer therapy, including chronotherapy (Cell Systems, 2018), hypoxia-targeted therapy (Nature Metabolism, 2019), target therapy (Genome Medicine, 2020a), and immunotherapy (Nature Immunology, 2019; Nature Communications, 2020a; Nature Communications, 2020b; Genome Medicine, 2020b; Advanced Science, 2020; Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2021; Cancer Cell, 2021; The Innovation, 2021; Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer, 2022; Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 2022). These studies shed light on future clinical considerations for the development of innovative therapies for cancer types currently lacking effective treatment options. We will further develop highly innovative prognostic and therapeutic strategies with the potential to produce a major impact on biomedical research. Bio: Dr. Han is an Associate Professor and CPRIT scholar at Texas A&M University, Institute of Biosciences & Technology. Before join TAMU, he is an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Han obtained his PhD from Chinese Academy of Sciences and did postdoc training with Dr. Joseph C. Wu at Stanford University, and Dr. Han Liang at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Han’s lab focused on harnessing big data for precision oncology. In the past several years, his labs contributed to RNA-targeted therapy, target therapy and immunotherapy, and published several papers in high profile journals, including Cancer Cell, Nature Metabolism, Nature Immunology, Nature Communications, The Innovation, Cell Systems, Cell Reports, Nucleic Acids Research, Genome Medicine, Journal of the National Cancer Institute. He has been invited to contribute review, commentary and spotlight by multiple journals, including Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, Nature Biotechnology, Trends in Genetics, Trends in Cancer, Trends in Molecular Medicine, Genome Medicine, and Oncogene. To date, he has published >140 peer-reviewed papers, with a total of > 17,000 citations (Google scholar, H-index = 56).