I am interested in developing statistical and computational methods to discover and explore the underlying principles of gene expression regulation in eukaryotes. How a cell controls its gene expression is one of the most fundamental and interesting questions in various biological processes, from intrinsic developmental program to response to extrinsic stimuli. Thus, it is not surprising that gene expression is tightly regulated and coordinated at multiple levels. At the transcriptional level, the interactions between transcription factors and DNA binding motifs play pivotal roles in transcription initiation. So do epigenetic effects, including histone modifications and DNA modifications. At the post-transcriptional level, mRNA processing, mRNA degradation and translational control all increase the complexity of gene expression regulation. My research goal is to address biological questions in gene expression regulation process by integrating and fully utilizing available experimental data. Therefore, my research depends on the analysis of large-scale data from biological sciences, such as genome sequence data, sequence variation data, protein-DNA interaction data, gene expression data, histone modification data, and other genomic data. My research topics include: microarray data analysis, false positive control for large-scale simultaneous tests, expression Quantitative Trait Loci (eQTL) mapping, analysis of epigenetic effects on gene expressions, analysis of alternative splicing, and analysis of genomic sequence properties. In addition, I am interested in genetic linkage and association studies to identify genetic variants underlying disease.

Computational Biology, Bioinformatics