Biography

Dr. Fan is a computational biologist with a long-standing focus on integrative research of epigenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics in human complex diseases, cancers in particular, through computational approaches while utilizing bulk and single-cell multi-omics sequencing data. She received training in medicine (M.B.B.S.) and bioinformatics (Ph.D.), and has extensive experience with genome-scale multi-omics data integration research. She led team efforts on epigenetic research for several Pan-Cancer Atlas (PanCanAtlas) working groups within The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network. These working groups included, pan-cancer gynecologic and breast cancer, pan-cancer squamous cancer, pan-cancer kidney cancer, and pan-cancer DNA damage repair pathway. This collaborative effort concluded in 2018 and led to a series of landmark publications on multi-omics integration research in human cancers with combined citations of more than 20,000 times.

As an Assistant Professor of Neurology with the McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), Dr. Fan has expanded her research interests to the field of artificial intelligence and single-cell multi-omics research in human cancers, as well as cancer-associated microenvironment. The cancer-Alzheimer’s disease nexus is an emerging field that she is actively involved in for the purpose of transfer-learning using the immense knowledge accumulated from human cancers, focusing on therapeutics.

Education

Medical Degree (MBBS)
Harbin Medical University - Harbin, China
Doctorate Degree
Bioinformatics, Harbin Medical University - Harbin, China

Areas of Interest

Research Interests

  • Harness translational big-data in the fields of neuroscience, neuroinformatics and neurodegeneration for a better understanding of disease mechanisms, focusing on therapeutics
  • Integrative OMICS research in human complex diseases, at both the bulk and single-cell level
  • Developing artificial intelligence-based computational framework to study the cancer-Alzheimer’s disease nexus

Publications

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Fan H, Wang F, Zeng A, Murison A, Tomczak K, Hao D, Jelloul FZ, Wang B, Barrodia P, Liang S, Chen K, Wang L, Zhao Z, Rai K, Jain AK, Dick J, Daver N, Futreal A, Abbas HA. Single-cell chromatin accessibility profiling of acute myeloid leukemia reveals heterogeneous lineage composition upon therapy-resistance. Commun Biol. 2023 Jul 21;6(1):765. doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-05120-6. PubMed PMID: 37479893; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10362028.

Fan H, Li J, Manuel AM, Zhao Z. Enzalutamide-induced signatures revealed by epigenetic plasticity using single-cell multi-omics sequencing in prostate cancer. Mol Ther Nucleic Acids. 2023 Mar 14;31:648-661. doi: 10.1016/j.omtn.2023.02.022. eCollection 2023 Mar 14. PubMed PMID: 36910711; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9995291.

Kang J, Dai Y, Li J, Fan H, Zhao Z. Investigating cellular heterogeneity at the single-cell level by the flexible and mobile extrachromosomal circular DNA. Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2023;21:1115-1121. doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2023.01.025. eCollection 2023. PubMed PMID: 36789262; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9900259. ($ co-last)

Fan H, Jia P, Zhao Z. Cell-Type-Specific Profibrotic Scores across Multi-Organ Systems Predict Cancer Prognosis. Cancers (Basel). 2021 Nov 30;13(23). doi: 10.3390/cancers13236024. PubMed PMID: 34885134; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8656778.

George JW, Fan H, Johnson B, Carpenter TJ, Foy KK, Chatterjee A, Patterson AL, Koeman J, Adams M, Madaj ZB, Chesla D, Marsh EE, Triche TJ, Shen H, Teixeira JM. Integrated Epigenome, Exome, and Transcriptome Analyses Reveal Molecular Subtypes and Homeotic Transformation in Uterine Fibroids. Cell Rep. 2019 Dec 17;29(12):4069-4085.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.11.077. PubMed PMID: 31851934; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6956710. (co-first)