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CancerYu Luan, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Cell Systems & Anatomy
Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute
Currently seeking M.S. & Ph.D. students
The Luan Lab stated in 2024, is part of the Department of Cell Systems and Anatomy at Long School of Medicine and is also affiliated with Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute and Mays Cancer Center. We study how genetic(variants) and non-genetic(epigenome) mechanisms that contribute to human disease. Our approaches including cutting-edge functional genomics assays, computational modeling and the development of new method for studying how epigenetic and chromatin topology changes throughout life.
Genetics: Large-scale studies have identified thousands of genetic variants, particularly in non-coding regions, that are associated with various traits and disease risks. Exploring how these genetic variants influence regulatory elements such as enhancers, promoters, and silencers. These elements play a crucial role in controlling when and where genes are expressed. Mapping the intricate connections between these regulatory elements and their target genes. Effector genes, which are directly influenced by changes in regulatory elements, are responsible for executing essential cellular functions. Investigating the cellular contexts in which these effector genes operate, pinpointing the specific cell types and physiological states that are impacted by genetic variants. Examining how genetic variants and their downstream effects translate into observable traits, such as susceptibility to diseases, responses to drugs, aging processes, and metabolic characteristics.
Our goal is to draw a comprehensive map from genetic variants to phenotypic outcomes, providing a thorough understanding of how genetic differences influence health.
Epigenetics: All somatic cells in an organism possess the same genome, yet their morphology, functions, and differentiation pathways are strikingly different. Somatic cells maintain tissue function and adapt to the ever-changing environment by differentiating into new cell types or altering their functional states. These cellular dynamics are mediated by changes in the epigenome, which reorganizes DNA regulation to turn on or turn off gene expression. Moreover, many patients experience disease onset or recurrence without changes in driver mutations and exhibit varying sensitivities to treatments. This is largely due to epigenome reorganization, where non-genetic factors play a significant role in the disease process. These non-genetic factors, or epigenetic modifications, influence our cells by altering the manner and timing of gene expression, and are also implicated in the aging process. Our lab focuses on understanding how gene regulation and cell fate decisions are influenced by epigenetic changes at both bulk and single-cell levels. By employing cutting-edge functional genomics techniques to study gene regulation and the chromatin organization of the genome, we investigate how these epigenetic and 3D genome alterations contribute to disease progression and influence therapeutic responses. We are also interested in elucidating how these epigenetic and 3D genome changes, occurring during aging, accelerate the onset of diseases.
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Professional Background
Education
- 2023 - Postdoctoral Fellow - Epigenetic and 3D Genome - Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
- 2019 - Ph.D - Computational Biology - Huazhong Agricultural University
Highlights
UT System Rising STARs Award;2024
CPRIT Scholar Award; 2024
Emerging Leaders Award in Computational Oncology; 2023
Emerging Scholar Award in Genome Sciences ; 2022Appointments
- 2024 - Assistant Professor - Department of Cell Systems and Anatomy, UT Health San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
- 2024 - Member - Mays Cancer Center
- 2024 - Associate Member - Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute
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Research & Grants
Grants
CPRIT Award for the Recruitment of First-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Members
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Publications
For a full list of publications, please see google scholar page.
Selected Publications1. IGVF Consortium. Deciphering the impact of genomic variation on function. Nature. 2024;633(8028):47-57. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07510-0.
2. Duan Z, Xu S, Sai Srinivasan S, Hwang A, Lee CY, Yue F, Gerstein M, Luan Y#, Girgenti M#, Zhang J#. scENCORE: leveraging single-cell epigenetic data to predict chromatin conformation using graph embedding. Briefings in Bioinformatics. 2024;25(2):bbae096.
3. Yang H*, Zhang H*, Luan Y*, Liu T, Yang W, Roberts KG, Qian M-x, Zhang B, Yang W, Perez-Andreu V, Xu J, Iyyanki S, Kuang D, Stasiak LA, Reshmi SC, Gastier-Foster J, Smith C, Pui C-H, Evans WE, Hunger SP, Platanias LC, Relling MV, Mullighan CG, Loh ML, Yue F, Yang JJ. Noncoding genetic variation in GATA3 increases acute lymphoblastic leukemia risk through local and global changes in chromatin conformation. Nature Genetics.(2022)
4. Yang H*, Luan Y*, Liu T*, Lee HJ, Fang L, Wang Y, Wang X, Zhang B, Jin Q, Ang KC, Xing X, Wang J, Xu J, Song F, Sriranga I, Khunsriraksakul C, Salameh T, Li D, Choudhary MNK, Topczewski J, Wang K, Gerhard GS, Hardison RC, Wang T, Cheng KC, Yue F. A map of cis-regulatory elements and 3D genome structures in zebrafish. Nature. (2020).
5. Liu T, Wang J, Yang H, Jin Q, Wang X, Fu Y, Luan Y, Wang Q, Youngblood MW, Lu X, Casadei L, Pollock R, Yue F. Enhancer Coamplification and Hijacking Promote Oncogene Expression in Liposarcoma. Cancer Res. (2023)
6. Xu J, Song F, Lyu H, Kobayashi M, Zhang B, Zhao Z, Hou Y, Wang X, Luan Y, Jia B, Stasiak L, Wong JH-y, Wang Q, Jin Q, Jin Q, Fu Y, Yang H, Hardison RC, Dovat S, Platanias LC, Diao Y, Yang Y, Yamada T, Viny AD, Levine RL, Claxton D, Broach JR, Zheng H, Yue F. Subtype-specific 3D genome alteration in acute myeloid leukaemia. Nature. (2022)
7. Wang, X., Luan, Y. and Yue, F. EagleC: A deep-learning framework for detecting a full range of structural variations from bulk and single-cell contact maps. Science Advances (2022)
8. Sun F, Ou J, Shoffner AR, Luan Y, Yang H, Song L, Safi A, Cao J, Yue F, Crawford GE, Poss KD. Enhancer selection dictates gene expression responses in remote organs during tissue regeneration. Nature Cell Biology. (2022)
9. Iyyanki T, Zhang B, Wang Q, Hou Y, Jin Q, Xu J, Yang H, Liu T, Wang X, Song F, Luan Y, Yamashita H, Chien R, Lyu H, Zhang L, Wang L, Warrick J, Raman JD, Meeks JJ, DeGraff DJ, Yue F. Subtype-associated epigenomic landscape and 3D genome structure in bladder cancer. Genome Biology.(2021)