Statistical Bioinformatics Seminar: Siyuan Zheng

Speaker: Dr Siyuan Zheng (UT Health, San Antonio) 

Abstract: Cancer poses unique challenges in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) for
several reasons.  First, because of their relatively young age, they are often diagnosed
late.  Second, AYAs often face reproductive and developmental related issues that are
usually of less concerns for older cancer patients.  Third, long-term health problems
associated with cytotoxic treatments can cause morbidity affecting decades of
patients’ life.  Forth, for unknown reasons, AYAs are less enrolled in clinical trials
in the US.  Finally, research attentions are more directed to pediatric and older adult
patients.  Many cancer hospitals have not yet established AYA specific clinical care
programs.  To improve our understanding of AYA cancers, we analyzed clinical panel
sequencing data from AACR GENIE.  GENIE is a consortium effort that comprise sequencing
data for more than 100,000 patients.  The dataset is highly heterogeneous, but meanwhile
represents a rich resource for genomic studies due to its sample size and diversity.  In
this presentation, I will discuss our findings on the genomic and clinical disparities
of AYA cancers.  

About the speaker: Dr.  Zheng is an Assistant Professor and PI at Greehey Children’s
Cancer Research Institute, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San
Antonio.  He received his B.S.  in Biochemistry from Nanjing University, China, and PhD
in Bioinformatics from Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, China.  After his PhD, he received postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt
University and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.  During his time at MD Anderson, he
participated in TCGA and led the TCGA adrenal cancer project.  At UT Health, his group
mines cancer genomic datasets to understand cancer aneuploidy, telomeres, and cancer
disparity.  He is a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research and a recipient of the UT Rising
STARs Award in 2019.  More information about him can be found at on his Github site.