Group of Clinical Genomic Networks

Department of Molecular Systems Biology -CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology

Yuanhua Liu, staff scientist

Field of Research: System Biology

I obtained my Ph.D in control theory and control engineering in 2008. I started my research experience in 2007, working as a PostDoc in the Helmholtz centre for infection research for synthetic biology research, and joined the Group of Clinical Genomics Network (CGN) at PICB one year later.

Modeling of biological process

During My Ph.D, I focused on the modelling of large scale mammalian cell cultivations, establishing two types of models in terms of the mechanisms of cell metabolism and cell cycle, respectively. These models can be used for optimizing the cell cultivation process and therefore improving the productivity.

Synthetic biology

The modelling work continued in Helmholtz centre, where she collaborated with the synthetic biology group to study the gene expression efficiency with respect to different synthetic operations. Here, I used a stochastic model to describe the gene expression process, based on which the gene expression efficiency can be predicted.

Computational biology

My current interests are in applying computational biology methodologies to study the mechanisms of the onset and during the process of treatment of the complex diseases, including metabolic syndromes and autoimmune syndromes. Currently, I am heavily involved in two big projects: studying the effect of microbiota on human health and uncovering mechanisms during the acupuncture treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In particular, I am in charge of defining methodologies to pre-process raw omics data and further extract the biological information from these datasets.