About me

I am a Postdoc Scientist and inaugural NHMRC Investigator Fellow in Powell Lab at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. My current research is focused on identifying the genetic control of gene expression variability at the single-cell level. To achieve this goal, I am developing novel statistical methods for single-cell variance eQTL mapping and applying them to the OneK1K cohort which contains gene expression profiles of 1.2 million peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from ~1,000 individuals. This work would help to understand how genetic variants contribute to gene expression regulation at the single-cell level. I am also leading the work on gene regulatory network inference and multi-omics integration for the expanded version of OneK1K, i.e., TenK10K cohort, which will curate single-cell profiling for > 50 million cells from 10,000 individuals.

I obtained my PhD in 2021 at The University of Queensland working with Prof. Jian Yang in the field of statistical genetics. During my PhD, I utilised statistical and computational methods to dissect the genetic architecture of human complex diseases, perform meta-analyses, and integrate multi-omics data to identify causal genes and genetic regulatory mechanisms. I conducted the largest genetic study of type 2 diabetes and highlighted three T2D-associated genes with plausible regulatory mechanisms where a genetic variant exerts an effect on T2D through epigenetic regulation of gene expression. I also co-developed a software tool (GSMR2 for evaluating the causal relationship between modifiable risk factors and complex diseases. I was awarded the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics (Genetics Society of America) in recognition of my PhD work.