Welcome to Yang Lab at UMN (soon move to Northwestern Univ.)

The Yang Lab is interested in the integrative analysis of large-scale datasets to understand the initiation and progression of diseases. The research projects involve in the development of highly accurate and sensitive computational methods for analyzing multidimensional omics data, especially in the area of detecting and analyzing genetic and transcriptomic alterations using second and third generation sequencing data. The long-term goal is to elucidate the genetic mechanisms of human diseases, such as cancer. Example projects span from technique-driven research that aims to develop algorithms for a wide range of applications to hypothesis-driven investigation of specific biological problems to fill the knowledge gap for a deeper understanding of biological systems.

There are four main areas of research:

1. Genomic alterations detection: Genomic analysis of DNA using high-throughput sequencing to identify genetic alterations associated with human disorders
2. Transcriptomic mis-splicing events discovery: Using short and long RNA sequencing to identify non-canonical splicing events that contribute to cancers
3. Understanding lncRNA biology: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are poorly annotated compared to coding genes; we aim to identify the disease-causing lncRNAs and their underlying mechanisms
4. Tumor neoantigens and immunotherapy: Leveraging multi-omics data to identify neoantigens that are potential predictive biomarkers for a response to cancer immunotherapy

Technologies and methods

The Yang Lab is primarily a bioinformatic group that uses a wide range of genomic, bioinformatic, and statistical methods including: whole-exome sequencing, whole-genome sequencing, RNA-Seq, ChIP-Seq, and third-generation sequencing (PacBio and ONT).

Detailed technoical guide and lab documents can be found at the Lab Guide page.

Joining Yang Lab

If you are interested in joining please go to the recruitment page.

Funding

We are grateful for funding from the NIH/NCI, NIH/NIGMS, the US Department of Defense, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, the PhRMA Foundation, and the Chrodoma Foundation.