Welcome to Gao Lab!
Our lab is broadly interested in the development and application of novel computational methods combined with the latest sequencing technologies to solve a variety of biological problems, including but not limited to the following areas.
1) Metagenomics and microbiome;
2) Bulk and single-cell transcriptomics;
3) Nucleic acid modification;
4) Long-read sequencing data processing and analysis.
The recent research of Dr. Yuan Gao focused on development of computational methods for omics data, including several widely used tools in transcriptomics and metagenomics:
1) a de novo method for sensitive and specific detection of circular RNAs, CIRI/CIRI2;
2) a method for detecting internal structure and alternative splicing events for circular RNAs, CIRI-AS;
3) a reference-free method for quantifying and comparing bacterial growth dynamics from multiple metagenomic samples, DEMIC;
4) a method for robust discovery and quantification of transcript isoform from error-prone long-read RNA-seq data, ESPRESSO.
Dr. Gao has an extensive publication record in recent years, including corresponding or first author papers published in top journals such as Nature Methods, Science Advances, Nature Communications, Advanced Science, Genome Biology and Trends in Genetics, which have more than 2,500 citations according to Google Scholar. In 2021, Dr. Gao set up this laboratory in Beijing Institute of Genomics (BIG), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
Lab Members
Yuan Gao
Principal Investigator
Dr. Yuan Gao is a professor at Beijing Institute of Genomics (BIG), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He received his Ph.D. degree at university of CAS, and completed his postdoctoral training at University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
Weiwei Zhang
Research Assistant Professor
Dr. Weiwei Zhang is the lab manager of Gao lab. He completed his Ph.D. and postdoctoral training in microbiology at Institute of Microbiology, CAS. His research interests include developing and applying computational methods for third generation sequencing to explore gene functions of environmental microbes.
Zihan Zhou
PhD Student
Zihan Zhou is a Ph.D. student in Gao lab majored in bioinformatics. She completed her master's degree in Genomics at BIG, CAS. She is interested in developing predictive AI algorithms, and she is now working on using deep learning model to understand RNA splicing pattern.
Xin Zheng
PhD Student
Xin Zheng completed his bachelor's degree in Biotechnology from Harbin Medical University. Now he is majoring in genomics at BIG, CAS. He is interested in deep learning and its application in circRNA identification as well as other genomic fields.
Wen'ao Hu
Master Student
Wen'ao Hu is a master student at BIG, CAS. He completed his bachelor's degree from Huazhong Agricultural University and joined the Gao Lab in September 2021. He is interested in development of high-precision method for strain identification and growth dynamics in metagenomics.
Weizhi Yuan
Master Student
Weizhi Yuan graduated from Southeast University and received his bachelor's degree in 2021. He is majoring in genomics at BIG, CAS from 2022. He is interested in applying machine learning algorithms for identification of nucleic acid modification.
Bingqi Wu
PhD Student
Bingqi Wu finished her bachelor's degree at South China Agricultural University in 2022. She is majoring in Bioinformatics at BIG, CAS. Now, she is actively learning the relevant knowledge of programming and algorithms to lay a solid foundation for her future research on genomics and spatial transcriptomics.
Shixin Chen
Master Student
Shixin Chen graduated from Wuhan University with a bachelor's degree. He majors in bioinformatics at BIG, CAS. His research mainly concentrates on the basic research and frontier issues of bioinformatics, such as method development and spatial transcriptomics.
Mengxue Peng
Postdoc Researcher
Dr. Mengxue Peng is now a postdoctoral fellow in the Gao lab. She received her Ph.D. degree from the Department of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering, China Agricultural University. She is interested in the interaction mechanisms between tumor microbiome and host.
Wei Pan
PhD Student
Wei Pan is a Ph.D. student in the Gao lab, majoring in bioinformatics. He received his master's degree from Shandong University. He is interested in single cell spatial transcriptomics and is currently developing tools for full-length transcript isoforms.
Jie Zhang
Master Student
Jie Zhang graduated from Ocean University of China and received her bachelor's degree in 2023. Since 2023, she has been studying bioinformatics at the Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (BIG, CAS). Her research interest is in the field of metatranscriptomics.
Yukun Zhang
Master Student
Yukun Zhang completed his bachelor's degree at Northwest A&F University in 2023. He is majoring in bioinformatics at BIG, CAS, and is passionate about using deep learning algorithms to unravel the mysteries of microbiome data.
