17 March 2023
Xia Yang
Departments of Integrative Biology & Phyiology and
Molecular & Medical Pharmacology, UCLA
Common complex diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease are the result of interactions between genetic and environmental risks factors and involve network perturbations across molecular entities, cell types, tissues, and organ systems. Dissecting such complexity necessitates a multitissue multiomics approach that integrates bulk and single cell multiomics data (genome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, gut microbiome) across relevant tissues and cell types. In this talk, I will first delineate the conceptual framework underlying our recent method development efforts that enable causal network modeling of molecular, cellular, and tissue crosstalk in individual complex diseases and comparisons across diseases. I will then showcase some application examples of such approaches in mechanistic and drug discovery. Lastly, I will discuss the challenges as well as unique opportunities that await multitissue multiomics systems biology on the path towards network-based medicine for common complex diseases.