Specific Areas: Genetic Epidemiology, Statistical Genetics, Cancer Microbiome, Population Sciences
Postdoctoral research positions are available in the lab of Dr. Yanhong Liu at the Section of Epidemiology and Population Science, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine. Key research activities include the analysis of cancer genomic and microbiome data, with a focus on next-generation sequencing to characterize genomic variation, tumor microbiota, immunophenotyping, and their impact on cancer risk and outcome. The ideal candidate will have a strong intellectual curiosity, robust statistical skills, and a collaborative mindset.
Genetic Predictors of Risk and Outcomes: Our lab co-leads the analysis team for sequencing familial lung cancer in collaboration with the Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer Consortium (GELCC). Current projects involve the analysis of large-scale germline (e.g., polymorphisms, indels, and structural variants) whole-genome and exome sequencing data, including datasets from the UK Biobank, All of Us, and data generated through our funded grants.
Role of the Microbiome in Cancer and Therapy Efficacy: A central focus of our research is understanding how tumor-microbiome-immune system interactions influence cancer risk and patient outcomes, such as recurrence, treatment response, and therapy-related toxicity. These projects integrate epidemiological, clinical, and multi-omic data, including germline and somatic sequencing, shotgun metagenomic sequencing, bulk and single-cell RNA-Seq, and image mass cytometry, to study prognosis and recurrence in early-stage lung cancer and treatment response in immunotherapy-treated lung cancer.
We are funded by multiple NIH grants and CPRIT Systems Epidemiology of Cancer Training program and maintains active collaborations with prestigious institutions such as MD Anderson Cancer Center, Moffitt Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, and the University of New Mexico. Lab members bring diverse expertise in bioinformatics, epidemiology, genetics, next-generation sequencing, and statistics.
Interested applicants should send the following materials to Dr. Yanhong Liu at yl10@bcm.edu:
• A brief cover letter detailing your research interests for applying,
• Curriculum Vitae (CV)
• Names and contact information of two references