We are excited to welcome Professor Jean Fan from Johns Hopkins University as she presents, "Comparative Analysis of Spatially Resolved Transcriptomics Data"

ABOUT THE SEMINAR

Comparative Analysis of Spatially Resolved Transcriptomics Data

Mammalian tissues are comprised of many molecularly and functionally distinct cell-types and cell-states organized into meso-scale structures and patterns to achieve intricate biological functions. Likewise, cells within tissues regulate thousands of interacting genes and other molecules to sense, respond to, and shape their tissue microenvironments. In turn, extrinsic signals from the local microenvironment impact cell state and cell-type specification.

Recent advances in high-throughput spatially resolved transcriptomics technologies now enable the identification and characterization of these cell-type and their molecular states in health versus disease while preserving the cell’s spatial context. Application of these technologies provides the opportunity to contribute to a more complete understanding of how cellular spatial organization relates to tissue function and how cellular spatial organization is altered in disease. New statistical approaches and scalable computational tools are needed to connect these molecular states and spatial-contextual differences.

In this talk, I will provide an overview the latest spatially resolved transcriptomics technologies and associated computational analysis methods developed by my lab. We anticipate that such statistical approaches and computational methods for analyzing spatially resolved transcriptomic data will offer the potential to identify and characterize the heterogeneity of cells within their spatial contexts and contribute to important fundamental biological insights regarding how tissues are organized in both the healthy and diseased settings.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Jean Fan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Center for Computational Biology at Johns Hopkins University

Jean Fan is a member of the faculty of Biomedical Engineering in the Center for Computational Biology at Johns Hopkins University. Her research team, the JEFworks lab, is interested in understanding the molecular and spatial-contextual factors shaping cellular identity and heterogeneity, particularly in the context of cancer and how this heterogeneity impacts tumor progression, therapeutic resistance, and ultimately clinical prognosis. She develops new open-source computational software for analyzing single-cell multi-omic and imaging data that can be tailored and applied to diverse cancer types and biological systems. The impact of Dr. Fan’s work has been recognized by several awards and honors, including the Forbes 30 Under 30, the Nature Research Award for Inspiring Science, and the NSF CAREER Award.

ABOUT THE BME SEMINAR SERIES

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University is proud to host an annual weekly seminar series on the latest developments and research in Biomedical Engineering. The weekly series takes place on Friday mornings at 11:00 AM Eastern and includes a variety of renowned academics from top universities to talk about their specific research and experience. This is a hybrid event.