Welcome to Chen Group at U Chicago!

Computational and statistical genomics

Our research group develop computational and statistical tools to address the challenges high-throughput genomics technologies have posed for data analysis and interpretation, particularly for data emerging from biomedical studies.

Single cell genomics

Most of our work focuses on accounting for unwanted variation due to technical artifacts from single cell experiments. Completed and ongoing projects include developing methods to:  

• control for confounding effects for accurate downstream analysis
• preserve gene expression variability across cells after accounting for drop-out and imputing
• align single-cell RNA-seq samples across experiments enabling integrative and comparative analyses. 

Epitranscriptomics

The paradigm-shifting discoveries in RNA modifications have added RNA to the picture of dynamic regulation of gene expression through reversible chemical modifications. Successful transcriptome wide profiling of RNA modifications can significantly advance the frontier of epitranscriptomics research and associate epitranscriptomic variations with human health and diseases. We are developing methods for the following topics:

• Differential methylation analysis
• Integrative analysis of m6A modifications with ENCODE/Roadmap data.​

Cancer genomics

The cancer genome is characterized by genetic heterogeneity that is seen across tumor types, among samples of a particular type (inter-tumor heterogeneity) and within an individual tumor (intratumor heterogeneity). Understanding tumor heterogeneity is a prerequisite for personalized tumor diagnosis and treatment. We are developing methods for integrative tumor heterogeneity analysis using both single cell RNA sequencing and bulk tissue DNA sequencing data.

         Sounds interesting?

We welcome U Chicago students ​from the following programs (but not limited to): Human Genetics, GGSB, Statistics, Data Science and Biophysics. Postdoc positions are also available.

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Recent News:
 ​   

• 09/16/21         We received an NHGRI R01 award to work on statistical methods for spatial transcriptomics data. 
• 07/01/21         We received a CEGS award renewal from NHGRI  to work on epitranscriptomics, together with amazing labs led by Drs. Chuan He, Bryan Dickson, Tao Pan, Peng Jin and Hongjun Sun . 
• 03/30/21         Qi Zhan's collaborative work with Dr. Yang Li's lab, dmatch, has been published on Genome Research.
• 08/31/20         Welcome, Arpit Panda, a MSTP student, to join us for a rotation. 
• 08/28/20         Tae moved to Microsoft! Farewell and best wishes! 
• 07/20/20         Welcome, Allison Rodas, a first-year from the College, to join us for summer research with a Presidents' Scholarship.
• 07/17/20         Tae successfully defended her PhD thesis! Congratulations! 

• 07/13/20         Tae's HIPPO paper has been accepted in Genome Biology. Perfectly done!
• 06/26/20         We received an NSF DMS award to work on statistical methods for intra-tumor heterogeneity studies. ​

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