Assistant Affiliate Member, Research Institute
Houston Methodist
Dr. Wu earned his Ph.D. in Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. He became an assistant affiliated member of Houston Methodist Research Institute in 2014. Dr. Wu is an assistant Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston. Dr. Wu is an editorial member of the Journal of Data Mining in Genomics & Proteomics.
During the past years, Dr. Wu's research has primarily focused on biomarker discovery, disease mechanism and therapeutic intervention of autoimmune lupus. Lupus is a genetically complex autoimmune disease, where autoreactive B cells and T cells are hyperproliferative and hyperactive. Subsequently, high titers of autoantibodies are produced to form immune complex, and proinflammatory cytokines, chemokines and adhesion molecules are produced to form an environment of inflammation to promote end-organ damage, such as kidney damage. Lupus nephritis and related kidney diseases have become a considerable socioeconomic burden; however, there is no cure for these diseases. Apparently, there is an urgent need for the diagnosis and therapeutic intervention for these diseases. Research goals are:
-To discover early biomarker and non-invasive biomarkers of lupus nephritis
-To uncover signaling pathways that might be directly involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory lupus
-To identify metabolic pathways associated with inflammatory kidney diseases