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ITPR to Host Distinguished Seminar on Systems Biology

5 Dec, 2022

During the past decade, bioinformatics-driven approaches have been emerged to be a powerful means for delineating mechanisms of dynamic, complex cell-cell interactions within tissue microenvironment and for discovering novel targets for drug repositioning and development. Institute for Innovation, Translation and Policy Research (ITPR) invited Professor Stephen Wong, Houston Methodist Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine, to deliver a talk namely “Systems Biology and Omics-driven Approaches for Target Identification and Drug Discovery: from the Perspective of Cell-cell Communication” on December 5, 2022.

Following a welcome remarks by Professor Terence Lau, HKBU’s Interim Chief Innovation Officer, Professor Wong gave an overview of a multicellular systems biology strategy to understand the underlying cell-cell communication within tumor microenvironment using cell-specific, single cell, and spatial transcriptomics, multiplex imaging, and multi-cellular crosstalk modeling in a comprehensive, unbiased manner.  He also provided examples of applications targeting tumor microenvironment of different organs to illustrate the power of systems biology modeling for hypotheses generation, tumor heterogeneity delineation, and target and drug discovery, as well as ongoing extensions to other diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

The seminar was well-attended by over 70 participants including Mr. Alfred Sit, Senior Advisor to President and Vice-Chancellor and Advisor of ITPR, Dr Albert Chau, Vice-President (Teaching and Learning), Professor Chris Wong, Associate Dean of Scienceof Science (Transdisciplinary Development), Dr Johnson Lau, Chief Executive Officer and Board Chairman of Athenex, and researchers and students from a mix of disciplines in biology, chemistry, computer science and Chinese medicine. The seminar was ended after a fruitful discussion between the speaker and the participants.

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Professor Stephen Wong is John S. Dunn Sr. Presidential Distinguished Chair, founding Chair of Systems Medicine and Bioengineering Department, Director of the Tin Tsung & Wei Fong Chao Center for BRAIN and Translational Biophotonics Laboratory, Chief of Medical Physics, and Associate Director of Neal Cancer Center, Houston Methodist Hospital.  He is a Professor of Radiology, Neurosciences, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine of Cornell University.

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