Our Mission
Our systems medicine research provides new avenues to understand the causes of diseases, identify biomarkers, discover therapeutic targets, and attain precision in disease management.
Our work at Houston Methodist has led to clinical trials among all our research areas. We are also training a new generation of physicians and scientists to use systems approaches to medicine.
Research Areas
Diseases
- Solid adult and pediatric tumors
- Alzheimer’s disease and dementia
- Stroke
- Parkinson’s disease and movement disorders
- Diabetes and related metabolic disorders
Methods and Technologies
- Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
- Bioinformatics and Biostatistics
- Biological and Medical Image Analysis
- Cancer Biology and Neurobiology
- Clinical Informatics
- Digital Health
- Drug Repositioning and Discovery
- Internet of Medical Things
- Neuroimaging
- Optical Microscopy and Biophotonics
- Systems Biology
Bioinformatics Software
CCCEXPLORER FOR CANCER
CCCExplorer is a java-based software that predicts and visualizes the gene signaling network to aid research on crosstalk identification in the tumor microenvironment. CCCExplorer integrates a computational model that we developed to uncover cell-cell communication as a direct and connected network. These cell communications range from ligand-receptor interactions to transcription factors and their target genes. Learn more about CCCExplorer software.
Ref:
- Yeung TL, Sheng J, Leung CS, Li F, Kim J, Ho SY, Matzuk MM, Lu KH, Wong STC*, Mok SC*. Systematic Identification of Druggable Epithelial-Stromal Crosstalk Signaling Networks in Ovarian Cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2018 May 31. PMID: 29860390.
- Choi H, Sheng J, Gao D, Li F, Durrans A, Ryu S, Lee SB, Narula N, Rafii S, Elemento O, Altorki NK, Wong ST*, Mittal V*. Transcriptome analysis of individual stromal cell populations identifies stroma-tumor crosstalk in mouse lung cancer model. Cell Reports. 2015 Feb 24;10(7):1187-201. PMID: 2570482
DISNEY
Systems biology-based drug repositioning identifies digoxin as a potential therapy for groups 3 and 4 medulloblastoma. Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common malignant brain tumor of childhood. Although outcomes have improved in recent decades, new treatments are still needed to improve survival and reduce treatment-related complications.
DrugComboExplorer
Drug combinations that simultaneously suppress multiple cancer driver signaling pathways increase therapeutic options and may reduce drug resistance. We have developed a computational systems biology tool, DrugComboExplorer, to identify driver signaling pathways and predict synergistic drug combinations by integrating the knowledge embedded in vast amounts of available pharmacogenomics and omics data. Learn more about DrugComboExplorer software.
DrugComboRanker
DrugComboRanker is a computational tool that prioritizes synergistic drug combinations and uncovers their mechanisms of action. Learn more about DrugComboRanker.
G-CelliQ Image Processing Tool
Morphological plasticity is critical to organism development - as exemplified by the reversible conversion of embryonic non-migratory epithelial cells to motile mesenchymal cells required for tissue Morphological plasticity is critical to organism development as exemplified by the reversible conversion of embryonic non-migratory epithelial cells to motile mesenchymal cells required for tissue positioning and organization.
Undergraduate Students, Graduate Students, Staff, and External Collaborators
Graduate Students:
- Jonathon Cummock, TAMU-MD, PhD Student
- Rahul Ghosh, MSc, TAMU-MD, PhD Student
- Daniel Kermany, MSc, TAMU-MD, PhD Student
- Ju Ahn Young, BSc, TAMU-MD, PhD Student
- Glori Das, BSc, TAMU-MD, PhD Student
- Wesley Poon, BSc, TAMU-MD, PhD Student
- Orhun Davarci, MSc, TAMU EnMed Student
- Natasha Nehra, BSc, TAMU EnMed Student
- Gogol Bhattacharya, MSc, TAMU EnMed Student
- Reid Master, BSc, TAMU EnMed Student
- Patrick Sui, McGill University, PhD Student
- Vo Hung, UH, PhD Student
- Tongan Cao, Penn State University, PhD Student
- Jihua Liu, Bsc, U Penn, Biostatistics Master Student
Undergraduate Students:
David Hunt, TAMU, Computer Science
Staff
Computational and Informatics Staff:
- Yuliang Cao, MSc
- Zhihao Wan, MSc
- Shiruo Wang, MSc
- Xiaohui Yu, MSc
Lab Staff:
- Dongbing Gao, MSc
- Matthew Vasquez, BSc
- Shan Xu, MD
- Michael Chan, BSc
- Bill Chan, BSc
Administrative Staff:
- Tian Ding, PhD, MBA
- Chika Frank Ezeana, MD, MPH
- Deborah Dowell
- Martha Silva
External Collaborations:
- Vahid Afshar-Kharghan, MD, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Chris Bakal, PhD, The Institute of Cancer Research, U.K.
- Joseph Chang, PhD, School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- Sharon Glynn, PhD, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
- Willa Hsueh, MD, Diabetes and Metabolism Research Center, Ohio State University
- Ching Lau, MD, PhD, Center for Cancer and Blood Disorder, Connecticut Children’s and The Jackson Laboratory
- Xiao-Nan Li, MD, PhD, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, Lurie Children’s Hospital and Northwestern University
- Vivek Mittal, PhD, Ding Cheng Gao, PhD, Altorki Nasser, MD, The Neuberger Berman Lung Cancer Research Center, Weill Cornell Medicine
- Sam Mok, PhD, Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Hien Van Nguyen, PhD, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston
- Rudolph Tanzi, PhD, Doo Yeon Kim, PhD, Mass General Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND) laboratories, Mass General Hospital
- James Wang, PhD, Sharon Xiaolei Wang, PhD, College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University
- David Wink, PhD, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute
- Weiming Xia, PhD, Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Boston University
Clinical Trials
At Houston Methodist, our dedicated teams of world-renowned researchers help support the mission of our Cancer Research of bringing the latest technologies and advanced treatment options to patients as quickly and safely as possible.