The Department of Data Science (DS) at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) hosted a DS Distinguished Seminar featuring Prof. Yun LI, Professor of Genetics and Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prof. Li delivered a talk entitled “Computational Methods and Resources for Multi-omics Understanding of Complex Human Systems”, sharing her team’s recent advances in spatial omics, multi-omics data analysis, and computational resources for studying complex human diseases.
Prof. Li’s seminar provided an insightful overview of multi-omics research, with a focus on spatial transcriptomics from both methodological and data resource perspectives. She introduced StarTrail, her team’s gradient-based approach for identifying rapidly changing spatial regions and detecting “cliff genes”, genes with sharp local expression changes across tissue boundaries. This method enables deeper biological interpretation of tissue architecture, localized transitions, and spatially organized molecular patterns.
Prof. Li also introduced STimage-1K4M, a large-scale paired image–spatial transcriptomics multimodal dataset spanning multiple human organs, and shared benchmarking results across 20 computational methods for detecting spatially variable genes. The seminar further highlighted her team’s large-scale spatially variable gene atlas, showcasing their contributions to advancing multi-omics research through innovative analytical frameworks and foundational community resources.
Prof. Li’s research focuses on the development and application of statistical methods and computational tools for multi-omics dissection of complex human diseases. She has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers, including more than 30 in leading journals such as Nature, Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics. She has also taken leadership roles in multiple major multi-site consortia, including PRIMED, BACPAC, 4DN, and IGVF. In recognition of her high-impact scientific contributions, Prof. Li has been named a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher and Research.com Best Female Scientist.
DS thanks Prof. Li for her visit and for the engaging interaction with our faculty and students.