Research Interests

Comparative transcriptomics of zebrafish and mammals

Zebrafish, a promising vertebrate model for human diseases, also provides opportunities for functional genomics because of the relatively high sequence and functional similarity between zebrafish and mammalian genomes. We use comparative transcriptomics to identify common as well as unique signaling pathways modulated in response to a plethora of conditions using meta-analysis and gene/pathway network comparisons. We aim to discover novel associations between genotype and phenotype via systems biology applications and development of effective web tools.

Cancer systems biology

Our research focuses on determining coordinated changes in the transcriptome when cell signaling is modified via RNAi or agonists, such as nicotine or salt that act on specific receptors such as nicotinic acetylcholine and mineralocorticoid receptors, respectively. We perform RNAseq to profile transcriptomic changes in cancer cell lines and integrate our data with existing omics data to generate gene-cancer networks to prioritize genes and pathways.

Zebrafish screens in human diseases

Research in the lab focuses on developing xenograft as well as phenotypic, molecular and behavioral drug screening platforms in zebrafish to discover novel gene-drug-phenotype interactions in glioma and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis models.