Shu Wang Asst. Prof.
Donnelly Centre & Molecular Genetics

Shu obtained a BA in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics at Cornell University, with a thesis on the phase thermodynamics of phospholipid bilayers advised by Gerald W Feigenson and Jack H Freed. He obtained a PhD in Biophysics at Harvard University, studying how the high-dimensional geometry of single-cell multiplex imaging data can be analyzed and interpreted with biochemical reactions and spatial processes, under the supervision of Peter K Sorger and Eduardo D Sontag. He then pursued postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on multi-modal data integration using probabilistic graphical models, supervised by Douglas A Lauffenburger.

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shuw.wang “at” utoronto “dot” ca

Blake Hewens-Higgins

M.Sc. Student
Molecular Genetics

Blake is a graduate in biology from Acadia University. His passion for biology stems from a lifelong fascination with the natural world, in particular, the native flora and fauna of Nova Scotia. His academic interests revolve around using bioinformatic techniques to uncover the secrets of the Omics. Blake’s previous research focused on using genetic mapping to identify genetic markers associated with colour variation in apples. He was also employed as a Mitacs intern as a part of a joint partnership between the Migicovsky Lab and the Christmas Tree Council of Nova Scotia working on innovative agricultural techniques. Blake is currently pursuing his master’s degree in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto.

Yiran Shao

Ph.D. Student (Co-supervised)
Molecular Genetics

Yiran is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Molecular Genetics, co-supervised by Dr. Shu Wang and Dr. Philip Awadalla. She received her B.Sc. in Biology and Computer Science at the University of Western Ontario. Yiran’s research focuses on the development of computational and statistical methods for high-throughput analysis of biomedical images. Her current projects include constructing developmental trajectories from time-series organoid microscopy images and modelling spatial dependencies of immune cells in tumour microenvironments using multiplexed imaging data.

Zixuan Lan

Ph.D. Student (Co-supervised)
Molecular Genetics

Zixuan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Molecular Genetics, co-supervised by Dr. Shu Wang and Dr. Philip Awadalla. She received her B.Sc. in Life Sciences at McGill University with a minor in Computer Science. Her research focuses on understanding cancer evolution through trajectory mapping of cancer stem cells. Zixuan’s projects include characterizing cancer stem cells from single-cell transcriptomic datasets, tracing their evolutionary origins, and understanding how their evolution influences patient outcomes.

Christian (Zheyu) Lu

Undergrad Student

Zheyu is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Statistical Science, Quantitative Biology and Mathematics with a Pharmacology and Biomedical Toxicology focus program. He developed his passion for computational biology from a summer research experience at the Regulatory Genomics lab, where he learned and designed tools to preprocess genomic data. His research interests lie in the interdisciplinary fields of spatial statistics, mathematical modelling, machine learning and tumor biology. Zheyu is currently doing a project on studying the spatial length scales of cancer tissue by various statistical approaches.

Eren Cimentepe

Undergrad Student (Co-supervised)

Eren is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto studying Electrical and Computer Engineering. His previous research focused on computational neuroscience, where he modeled spinal cord neurons to investigate mechanisms underlying long-term plasticity. He is currently working on developing ordinary differential equation (ODE) models of muscle satellite cell dynamics from cell co-culture experimental data, to understand homeostatic and pathological states in muscle tissue repair.
Eren is co-supervised by Dr. Penney Gilbert.

Laeticia Liawas

Undergrad Student

Laeticia is an undergraduate student pursuing her bachelor’s degree in bioinformatics at the University of Toronto. Her previous endeavors include conducting wet lab experiments in Caenorhabditis elegans, as well as investigating patterns of physical gene clustering of paralogs in the Caenorhabditis genus. Her main research interest is the use of bioinformatics in analysing biological data to see what inferences can be drawn. 

Lucia (Juwon) Park

Undergrad Student

Lucia is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, studying Quantitative Biology and Fundamental Genetics and its Applications. Her interest in solving biological questions through mathematics began in high school when she was first introduced to Punnett squares. Lucia’s current research interests include single-cell data analysis, cell networks, and using computational and statistical approaches to understand the complex patterns in high-dimensional biological datasets. In the future, Lucia wants to pursue graduate studies in genomics or computational biology and her ultimate goal is to contribute to biological advancements by discovering new insights through statistics, machine learning, and mathematical modeling.

Zhanyan Guo

Undergrad Student

Zhanyan is an undergraduate student at University of Toronto, with a concentration in computational biology, applied mathematics and statistics. He is particularly interested in developing algorithmic and mathematical methods applicable to biological research. Zhanyan is currently focusing on revealing  probabilistic graphic model structure between biological factors from experimental results, such as the interaction network of genes from double knockout experiments.