I am an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Saint Louis University, with a secondary appointment in Department of Health and Clinical Outcomes Research (HCOR) in School of Medicine. I received my M.A. in Statistics in 2014, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2019 from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The research in my lab focuses on developing data-driven computational methods (particularly machine learning, deep learning, and computational optimization methods) to address the fundamental problems in biological sciences, including protein/RNA structure prediction, molecular interactions (i.e., protein-protein complex, protein-RNA contacts) and quality assessment of molecular structure predictions. In addition, we are also interested in omics data analysis (i.e., RNA-seq/scRNA-seq transcriptomics and genomics). @Google Scholar / @Curriculum Vitae
Protein/RNA Structure Prediction
Read MoreProtein Quality Assessment
Read MoreOmics data analysis & Deep Learning
Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning
Read More1. 2024, School of Science & Engineering Faculty and Staff Excellence in Teaching Award, Saint Louis University |
2. 2019, Outstanding PhD Student Award in the College of Engineering, University of Missouri |
1. NIH/NIGMS, R15 (Principal-Investigator), “Improving Artificial Intelligence Readiness of RNA Motif Data for Structure Analysis and Modeling,” 09/2024 – 08/2027. Project Number: 1R15GM155891-01
Major Goals: Our goal is to enhance computational RNA structural analysis by integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and developing a comprehensive RNA data generation framework tailored for AI applications. |
|
2. NIH/NHLBI, R01 (co-Investigator, site co-PI), “Pharmacogenetic Refinement of the Warfarin Dose Using Machine Learning,” 07/2024 – 06/2028. (PI: Dr. Gage Brian at School of Medicine, WUSTL). Project Number: 1R01HL173734-01
Major Goals: Our goal is to improve the safety and effectiveness of anticoagulant therapy. We will use penalized regression and machine learning to develop algorithms to guide warfarin dosing. To facilitate use of the algorithms, we will integrate them into a popular electronic health record (Epic) and make them publicly available at our non-profit web application, www.WarfarinDosing.org
|
|
3. NSF (co-PI), “CC* Compute-Campus: Modernizing Campus Cyberinfrastructure for AI-Enhanced Research and Education (ModernCARE),” 11/2024 – 10/2026. (PI: Ted Ahn at SLU-CS). Project Number: 2430236
Major Goals: This project aims to enhance SLU's campus computing infrastructure equipment (a brand-new, small-scale, university-wide, GPU-based cluster) to support advanced AI-driven research and educational activities that will benefit our faculty, students, and broader scientific community.
|
|
4. SLU Scholarly Undergraduate Research Grants and Experiences (SURGE) Program, “Automated RNA Motif Structure Parsing Framework for AI/ML applications,” 08/2024 – 12/2024
Scope of work: This research assistantship supports one undergraduate student to develop Machine Learning driven RNA motif analysis framework. |
Data-restrained structural modeling based on experimental information has attracted new attention. Solutions to such problems are still under development. The use of experimental restraints, such as cross-linking/mass spectrometry, small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) and single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) have emerged and are considered a promising direction in structural modeling improvement.
My research interest focuses on developing computational methods (i.e. deep learning, machine learning, optimization techniques) to determine the optimal ways to fully leverage the experimental information from SAXS/Cryo-EM in protein/RNA structure modeling.
Protein quality assessment (QA) plays an important role in protein structure prediction, which evaluates the quality of a protein model without knowing its true structure. My research interest focuses on developing deep-learning based model QA methods to explore potential solutions for improving the accuracy of model quality assessment, incuding integrating multiple QA methods and residue-residue contact/distance predictions.