Associate Research Scientist, Pathology at Yale School of Medicine (2022-04 – Present)
Serves as the sole bioinformatics scientist within a 16-18 member oncology laboratory, directing genomic analysis for a Phase II breast cancer trial spanning ~80 patients across 15-20 US medical centers, a small cell lung cancer trial, and concurrent non-small cell lung and colorectal programs. Supports institution-wide investigators and an industry collaboration with Genentech. Output across these programs spans 5 peer-reviewed publications and presentations at AACR and SITC since 2022.
- Established a candidate marker of immunotherapy resistance now advancing to cell line and organoid validation by profiling transposable element expression across responder and non-responder cohorts within a Phase II breast cancer trial.
- Delivered the variant evidence underpinning treatment-arm stratification across a multi-center Phase II trial through paired whole-genome, whole-exome, and RNA-seq analysis, separating response from resistance signatures.
- Introduced predictive modeling into clinical trial analysis by developing random forest classifiers for treatment response and applying agentic AI workflows to interrogation of multi-dimensional genomic and clinical datasets.
- Surfaced elevated PCDH11X expression in non-small cell lung cancer brain metastases, a finding published in Molecular Cancer (2026) that anchored a successful Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program Idea Award application.
- Produced first patient-level evidence that lung cancer brain metastases evade immune detection via reduced HLA class I antigen presentation rather than defective interferon-gamma signaling, integrating whole-exome, RNA-seq, and ATAC-seq analysis.
- Identified TAP2 downregulation as a driver of immune evasion and immunotherapy resistance in non-small cell lung cancer, pairing genome-wide expression profiling with ATAC-seq assessment of chromatin accessibility across TAP2 regulatory states.
- Overturned a colorectal cancer program's hypothesis by demonstrating that high rather than low MGMT expression associates with worse disease, redirecting study design and prompting cell line validation. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, 2025.
- Accelerated genomic analysis turnaround by 60%+ via the laboratory's first in-house whole-exome, whole-genome, and ATAC-seq pipelines, architected to replace external collaborator dependency with reproducible, investigator-accessible workflows.
- Eliminated a multi-day manual bottleneck in quantitative immunofluorescence analysis by scripting the workflow in Python and R, collapsing spreadsheet-based marker quantification into a single automated run for pathologists and immunologists.
- Built the laboratory's computational capability by training bench scientists in analytical methods, mentoring junior researchers toward independent scientific careers, and directing sequencing and analysis strategy with investigators in weekly review.
Associate Research Scientist, Pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine (2020-10 – 2022-03)
Owned bioinformatics delivery for a basic science laboratory studying cancer biology and immune regulation, running concurrent projects across bulk and single-cell transcriptomics, chromatin accessibility, and CRISPR functional genomics screens. Delivered the computational analysis behind two peer-reviewed publications and one manuscript under review across the appointment.
- Co-first-authored a 2024 Nature Communications study identifying the CUL5 E3 ligase complex as a negative regulator of CD8+ T cell signaling, nominating an immunotherapy inhibition target through CRISPR-Cas9 screening and single-cell profiling.
- Resolved how WNT5 loss reshapes neutrophil immune signaling by analyzing single-cell RNA-seq across knockout and wild-type mouse models, supplying the mechanistic core of a 2024 Cell Reports study.
- Established the laboratory's first RNA-seq, bulk ATAC-seq, single-cell RNA-seq, and CRISPR-Cas9 screening pipelines, opening four analytical capabilities the group had not previously been able to run internally.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Cancer Genomics at University of Macau (2016-05 – 2020-05)
Led the bioinformatics workstream within a laboratory directed by the faculty's dean of research, spanning breast cancer discovery and a nasopharyngeal carcinoma precision oncology program while serving clinicians, research associates, and graduate researchers. Owned the computational component end to end across the portfolio, yielding 5 peer-reviewed publications.
- Equipped clinicians to match nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients to targeted therapies by resolving mutation and copy number profiles from whole-exome and RNA sequencing; the Nature Communications study underpinned a major University grant.
- Surfaced both established and previously unreported breast cancer driver genes through integrated genomic and transcriptomic analysis, producing the candidate target set that shaped the laboratory's subsequent discovery work.
- Underpinned the laboratory's wider research portfolio by delivering the bioinformatics behind concurrent discovery projects, two completed graduate research programs, and grant applications that went on to secure funding for colleagues.
- Achieved first-author publication within twelve months of pivoting from structural bioinformatics into cancer genomics, delivering both a meta-analysis and a field review in the new specialization.
Researcher/Assistant Professor, Bioinformatics at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology (2006-06 – 2016-04)
Directed structural bioinformatics research on biological toxins while completing doctoral studies, building computational resources for the research community and training 50+ junior researchers in molecular modeling and computational biology methods.
- Built and released NEUROTOX, the first neurotoxin reference database to provide computationally resolved three-dimensional structures, modeling 1,000+ toxin proteins to close a structural coverage gap no existing resource in the field addressed.
- Advanced candidate inhibitors of toxin function by combining molecular docking with molecular dynamics simulation, producing structural characterizations across 10+ peer-reviewed publications in toxin informatics and structural bioinformatics.
