Endowed Chair and Professor of Bioinformatics; Division of Computational Biomedicine, Biological Chemistry
School of Medicine

Computational Epigenomics and Transcriptomics

Wei Li Lab

Our research is focused on the design and application of bioinformatics algorithms to elucidate global regulatory mechanisms in normal development and diseases such as cancer. We have a solid track record in large-scale genomics data analysis and the development of widely used open-source bioinformatics software, such as MACS (>9,000 citations) for ChIP-seq and RSeqQC (>1,200 citations) for RNA-seq. In collaboration with experimental biologists, we have used bioinformatics to gain novel biological insights into development, aging, stem cell, neurologic disorders, and various cancers. Our major contributions to science include the following: (1) We uncovered several novel links between chromatin modifications and cancer driver gene regulation; (2) Our work on alternative polyadenylation (APA) is the first of its kind to connect APA regulation to many human complex traits and diseases. (3) Our work regarding cell heterogeneity in DNA methylation has now been quickly adopted in clinical trials for early cancer detection by liquid biopsy. Since establishing my own bioinformatics lab in early 2008, we have (as of 03/2021)
* Published ~160 peer-reviewed papers through solid methodology development and extensive collaboration research, including 23 senior-author papers in Nature, Cell, and Science series.
* Been well-funded with 3 R01 grants from NIH.
* Mentored the first 8 postdoc trainees to start their independent faculty positions in prestigious research institutions in the US (6) and China (2).

Cellular and Molecular Biosciences

Mathematical and Computational Biology

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6687

Last updated
08/27/2021