The Big Picture

I study the gene regulatory interactions in the human neurons via the use of statistical and computational methods on large-scale genomics data.

Most neuropsychiatric disease risk variants lie in non-coding regions of the genome that are poorly understood. Leveraging the fact that gene regulatory elements often reside in open chromatin, we set to characterize disease risk variants that affect chromatin accessibility in iPSC-derived neurons during neurodevelopment using a series of experimental and computational techniques. Our work led to the discovery of important functional genetic loci associated with schizophrenia. 

Currently, I am developing a more generic statistical model that can be applied to single-cell gene expression data or eOTL datasets and identify gene modules disrupted by genetic perturbation.