Research

My research lab at Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute focuses on data mining for bioinformatics and computational molecular biology, particularly, bioimage data mining and informatics. These bioimages include cellular and molecular images and related medical images. Several recent projects are listed below. Some further description of my ongoing research can be found here.

• 3D Digital Atlas Modeling of Animals at the Single Cell/Neuron Level: building a 3D digital Worm Atlas for every cell in C. elegans and a 3D digital Fly Brain Atlas for fruitfly;
  
• Analysis of Gene Expression Pattern Images: high-performance image analysis and mining for different model organisms, such as fruitfly, C. elegans, and mouse;
  
• Feature/Model Learning: developing algorithms and software to extract/select features and learn models from biological data (e.g. microarray data, neuronal gene expression patterns in microscopical images, etc.);
  
• Brain Morphometry and Neuronal Structure Analysis: developing computational tools to measure and analyze quantities of brain tissues and neurons.

Many of the above projects are only possible through the joint efforts of multiple research labs. Currently I am collaborating most with Gene Myers lab, Julie Simpson lab, Gerry Rubin lab, Eric Betzig lab, Stuart Kim lab (Stanford), as well as many other labs and colleagues.

I have also worked in the more traditional pattern recognition and artificial intelligence field. I do have continuous interest in many theoretical problems there.