Vascular-Targeted Genomic and Genetic Strategies for Acute Chest Syndrome

Wei Zhang PhD, Co-Investigator (0.6 calendar): Associate Professor of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University. He is a highly trained bioformatician with strong genomic and genetic skills, who has extensive experience in analyzing large SNP data and whole genome gene expression data on various microarray platforms (e.g., Affymetric GeneChi arrays) as well as genomewide associations between genetic variants and complex phenotypes (eg., mapping expression quantitative trait loci, eQTLs). Dr. Zhang is recognized expert in translational bioinformatics, network modeling, and discovery of genomic and phenome-wide systems properties by processing large-scale datasets in a high throughput fashion, integrating legion-size heterogeneous datasets via natural language processing and ontology mapping, as well as designing and managing informatics services. He will lead the genetic analysis evaluating novel ACS candidate genes and the analysis of the PBMC Genomic signatures of ACS.