Advisory Board and Editors Translational Medicine
Yuan Shang
Dr. Yuan Shang works on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) at the University of Arizona. He combines any potential methods and data to search potential therapeutic opportunities for AD. He is an expert on omics data analysis, multi-omics integrations, network-based pattern recognition, and machine learning-based biomarker discoveries.
Nicholas Syn
Nicholas Syn, MBBS, is a researcher at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. His research interests are in general surgery, transplant surgery, and translational oncology. He has published over 109 PubMed-indexed articles in these areas, and has a H-index of 19 (updated as of 16th Apr, 2021).
Abhishek Tyagi
I have been working on the molecular mechanisms of cancer progression and metastasis for the last ten years, identifying signaling pathways that promote cancer progression using various in vitro and in vivo models. During this time, I have published 30 articles with more than 2000 citations, and 12 papers have been cited as being in the top 10% of the field. They have mostly appeared in high-impact journals such as Sci. Adv., Nat. Comm., J. Exp. Med., Clinical Can. Res., Oncogene, Cancer Res., Cancer Letters. My research is primarily concerned with mechanistic and translational studies of tumor-initiating cells, the microenvironment, and non-coding RNAs in the context of cancer progression and metastasis. My long-term research goal is to conduct basic and translational research to elucidate the underlying mechanism(s) driving cancer metastasis and identify therapeutic targets, especially for highly aggressive metastatic cancers. In addition, I also serve on the editorial boards of three cancer-related journals. Before joining the department of Cancer Biology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, I was a senior research officer (SRO) at the Delhi State Cancer Institute, India (Govt. of India).
I am or have been...
1. A self-motivated, goal-oriented cellular/molecular biologist with over 7 years of experience in oncology.
2. Substantial experience in designing and executing well-controlled in vitro and in vivo assays for preclinical drug discovery, synthetic lethal screening, biomarker identification, target validation, immunogenicity, and toxicity assessment
3. Capable of investigating signaling pathways with a variety of molecular and genetic tools
4. Enthusiastic team worker and expert in forming strategic collaborations
Shibiao Wan
Dr. Shibiao Wan is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy, and the Co-Director for the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (BISB) PhD Program at University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). He is also an Assistant Professor (courtesy) in the Department of Biostatistics at UNMC.
With more than 15 years of experience in machine learning, bioinformatics, and computational biology, Dr. Wan has published >60 articles in top-tiered journals such as Genome Research, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Circulation Research, Briefings in Bioinformatics, and Bioinformatics. Dr. Wan is the Editor-in-Chief for Current Proteomics, and an Associate Editor/Academic Editor/Editorial Board Member for a series of prestigious journals such as Briefings in Functional Genomics, Heliyon, BMC Bioinformatics, International Journal of Microbiology, PeerJ Computer Science, BioMed Research International, and Computational and Mathematical Methods, and a guest associate editor for multiple high-impact journals.
He is a Scientific Program Committee (SPC) member for American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Annual Symposium and a Technical Program Committee (TPC) member for >20 machine learning related international conferences including IEEE ICTAI. Dr. Wan is also a reviewer for >70 prestigious journals including Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Nature Computational Science, Science Advances, Nucleic Acids Research, Advanced Science, Cancer Research, Genome Biology, and Genome Medicine. Dr. Wan has received a number of accolades including the Springer Nature Editor of Distinction Award in 2025 by Springer Nature, the New Investigator Award in 2024 by UNMC, the FIRST Award in 2023 by Nebraska EPSCoR, the Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2022 by HK PolyU as well as the Global Peer Review Awards (top 1%) in “Cross-Field” and “Biology and Biochemistry” in 2019 by Clarivate. Dr. Wan is a member of AACR, AMIA, ISCB and ACM and an IEEE Senior Member.
Benjamin J. Whalley
Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Reading. British Neuroscience Association Local Group Representative. British Pharmacological Society (Member). UK Epilepsy Research Network (Interventions & Therapies CWG). Pharmacist (GPhC registered).
Investigating unmet clinical need in epilepsy with a specific focus on cannabinoid pharmacology using preclinical animal models and electrophysiological techniques supported by convention molecular and biochemical approaches.
Katrine L Whiteson
Katrine Whiteson uses metagenomics, metabolomics, microbiology and ecological statistics to answer questions about how microbes and viruses affect human health. She studied Biochemistry at UC Berkeley (BA, 2000) and University of Chicago (PhD, 2007). During her PhD, Dr. Whiteson focused on the active site chemistry and DNA binding specificity of a site-specific recombinase from the class of proteins that enable the spread of antibiotic resistance genes. In 2008, she began a new job at the University of Geneva Hospitals with Dr. Jacques Schrenzel and Dr. Patrice Francois. This was an exciting era, just at the start of the Human Microbiome Project, for asking basic unanswered questions about the microbes and viruses inhabiting various niches of the human body. Dr. Whiteson focused on the oral microbial communities of healthy Europeans, and malnourished kids in Niger who develop a devastating facial gangrene known as noma. In 2011 she moved to Forest Rohwer’s lab at San Diego State, where she undertook breath and sputum metabolite analysis to better understand the activity of CF patient microbial communities from Dr. Doug Conrad’s Adult CF clinic at UCSD. Combining information about the genetic potential of a microbial community through DNA sequencing with the activity of the community by metabolite profiling is a powerful approach that Dr. Whiteson hopes to employ in future projects as she begins her own lab at University of California Irvine in Fall 2014.
Albert HC Wong
Albert H.C. Wong is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and a Professor at the University of Toronto. He attended medical school at the University of Toronto, where he also completed specialty training in psychiatry and a PhD in neurobiology. Dr. Wong’s lab uses animal models and clinical studies to investigate genetic, epigenetic and developmental mechanisms of psychiatric disease. His areas of clinical expertise are in schizophrenia and brain stimulation.
Hao Wu
Hao Wu is a patent scientist in an oncology-focused biotechnology company, Exelixis, Inc. She obtained her Ph.D. in molecular biology from Rowan University (previously known as the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) – Stratford Campus). With hands-on knowledge in various aspects of biology, including molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, immunology, neuroscience, oncology, Hao has worked on inventions spanning a broad range of technologies, for example, biologics, antibodies, biomarkers, diagnostics, cell therapy, gene therapy, and sequencing.
Venkata Yellapantula
Bioinformatician currently at Memorial Loan Kettering Cancer Center with 10 years of experience in analyzing high-throughput genomic and proteomic data. I have a diverse background in handling raw exome & whole genome sequencing, RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq data to identify genetic aberrations. Proficient in development and implementing pipelines and algorithms and post analysis of aberrations identified through individual assays to glean novel biological patterns. Led large-scalegenomic efforts such as MMRF CoMMpass trial, ICGC & TCGA.
Xin Zhang
Dr. Xin Zhang is Department Director and Principal Investigator of the Clinical Experimental Center at Jiangmen Central Hospital (China). He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine from Sun Yat-sen University in 2016. Dr. Zhang is an enthusiastic, early career scientist involved in interdisciplinary training and has a strong biological background, including molecular pathology, molecular diagnostics, and molecular pharmacology. His current research interests mainly focus on the molecular mechanism of tumor recurrence and metastasis, clinical application of molecular diagnosis, and molecular pharmacological mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine in potential therapeutic application of cancer.