Epigenetic Regulation of Cancer Driver Genes

Time: 14:30-15:30, Wed, Nov 14, 2018

Location: Room 311, Wang Ke-Zhen Building, Peking University

Speaker: Dr. Wei Li (李蔚) Professor of Bioinformatics, Division of Biostatistics, Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas

Abstract:

My research is focused on the design and application of bioinformatics algorithms to elucidate global regulatory mechanisms in development and diseases such as cancer. Through big data bioinformatics analyses followed by experimental validation, we recently revealed three novel epigenetic mechanisms underlying dysregulations of cancer driver genes, namely (1) Broad H3K4me3 indicates Tumor Suppressor Genes (Nature Genetics 2015). (2) Oncogene Activation by Canyon DNA Hyper-methylation (Nature Genetics 2014; Genome Biology 2018). (3) 3`UTR Shortening Represses Tumor Suppressor Genes in trans (Nature 2014; Nature Genetics 2018). These results underscore the power of innovative bioinformatics analyses that can derive novel biological insights from existing big data in cancer genomics.

Bio:

Dr. Wei Li received his PhD in Bioinformatics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2003) and was an Associate Director of Bioinformatics at Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI; 2002-2004). After his postdoctoral training with Dr. XiaoleShirley Liu in the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology at Harvard (2004-2007), he was recruited to Baylor as an Assistant Professor in 2007. After less than 9 years, Dr. Li was promoted to tenured Full Professor in 2016 (Duncan Endowed Chair in 2018).

Dr. Wei Li's Website: https://openwetware.org/wiki/Li_Lab