Publications

Our investigators are hard at work contributing to the global library of scientific understand across a variety of disciplines in quantitative and immunological research. Below you will find an archive of our most recent publications.

 

All Publications:

Controlling taxa abundance improves metatranscriptomics differential analysis

A common task in analyzing metatranscriptomics data is to identify microbial metabolic pathways with differential RNA abundances across multiple sample groups. With information from paired metagenomics data, some differential methods control for either DNA or taxa abundances to address their strong correlation with RNA abundance. However, it remains unknown if both factors need to be controlled for simultaneously. We discovered that when either DNA or taxa abundance is controlled for, RNA abundance still has a strong partial correlation with the other factor.

Suppression of Fibrinolysis and Hypercoagulability, Severity of Hypoxemia, and Mortality in COVID-19 Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 causes hypercoagulability, but the association between coagulopathy and hypoxemia in critically ill patients has not been thoroughly explored. This study hypothesized that severity of coagulopathy would be associated with acute respiratory distress syndrome severity, major thrombotic events, and mortality in patients requiring intensive care unit-level care.

Neutralizing Antibody Activity to SARS-CoV-2 Delta (B.1.617.2) and Omicron (B.1.1.529) After One and Two Doses of BNT162b2 Vaccine in Infection-Naïve and Previously-Infected Individuals

Abstract

Previous reports demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 binding IgG did not increase significantly between first and second doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine in previously-infected individuals. We tested neutralizing antibodies (nAb) against SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants post first and second doses of BNT162b2 in infection-naïve and previously-infected individuals. Delta, but not Omicron, nAb significantly increased from first to second dose in both groups of individuals.

Evaluating immune response and metabolic related biomarkers pre-allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplant in acute myeloid leukemia

Abstract

Although hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) is the only curative treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), it is associated with significant treatment related morbidity and mortality. There is great need for predictive biomarkers associated with overall survival (OS) and clinical outcomes. We hypothesized that circulating metabolic, inflammatory, and immune molecules have potential as predictive biomarkers for AML patients who receive HCT treatment.

Palo: spatially aware color palette optimization for single-cell and spatial data

In the exploratory data analysis of single-cell or spatial genomic data, single cells or spatial spots are often visualized using a two-dimensional plot where cell clusters or spot clusters are marked with different colors. With tens of clusters, current visualization methods often assigns visually similar colors to spatially neighboring clusters, making it hard to identify the distinction between clusters.

The Functional Diversity of Tissue-Resident Natural Killer Cells Against Infection

Abstract

For decades, studies of natural killer (NK) cells have focused on those found in peripheral blood (PBNK cells) as the prototype for NK cell biology. Only recently have researchers begun to explore the diversity of tissue-resident NK (tr-NK) cells. While tr-NK cells were initially identified from mice parabiosis and intravascular staining experiments, they can also be identified by tissue retention markers such as CD69, CD103, and others. More importantly, tr-NK cells have distinct functions compared to PBNK cells.