WEI LAB

Cancer Bioinformatics for Precision Medicine

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Wei Lab

Team

Current Lab Members

Wei DAI, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor

Short Biography:
Dr. Wei Dai attended China Medical University for her bachelor’s degree and obtained her MSc. in Bioinformatics from the University of Manchester in UK. In 2011, she finished her PhD in Cancer Bioinformatics in the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine in Imperial College London in UK. She was awarded British Association of Cancer Research (BACR) Gordon Hamilton-Fairley Young Investigator Award for her PhD study on methylation prognostic biomarkers for epithelial ovarian cancer. She joined the Department of Clinical Oncology as Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Research Assistant Professor. In 2019, she started working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Oncology.

Research Interests:

  • Bioinformatics and system biology approaches for understanding pathogenesis and progression in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.
  • Integration of genomic, epigenomic changes and clinical data to identify the biomarkers for cancer metastasis and tumor neoantigen for immunotherapy.
  • Development of bioinformatics tools for identifying the genomic alterations in liquid biopsies.

CV

Dittman Lai Shun Chung – PhD Student (July 2020 - present)

With background of Engineering Dittman obtained a master’s degree in Biomedical and Biochemical Sciences at Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2018. He worked as Research Assistant in Dr. Wei Dai's group in the Department of Clinical Oncology at the University of Hong Kong since 2018, then started his PhD study in 2020. Currently, he is working on the 3D genome landscape study for Epstein-Barr virus-associated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).


Kazi Anisha Islam – PhD Student (2022 - present)

Anisha obtained her BEng in Chemical Engineering degree from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2021 and joined Dr. Wei Dai's group as a Research Assistant. She commenced her PhD in the same lab as a recipient of both the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship (HKPF) and HKU Presidential PhD Scholarship (HKU-PS) in Fall 2022. Her primary interest lies in exploring mutational signatures in NPC and their interactions with the immune system which can be translated into clinical applications in precision medicine.


Michael Chung – PhD Student (2022 - present)

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Cancer Biomedicine from the University College London in 2021, Michael received the prestigious HKU Presidential PhD Scholarship to start his Ph.D. journey. He is interested in understanding the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) in Epstein-Barr virus-associated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) through both experimental and bioinformatics approaches.


Chak Paak Ting, Cyrus – Master of Research in Medicine Student (2023 - present)

As a third-year MBBS student studying at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Cyrus is currently taking his Enrichment Year. He is pursuing a Master of Research in Medicine under the supervision of Prof. Dora Kwong and Dr. Wei Dai at the Department of Clinical Oncology, HKU. His current work focuses on the interplay between tumour cells and immune cells in the tumour microenvironment of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC), with a special interest in T lymphocytes and tumour-associated exosomes.


Zhaozheng Hou – Postdoctoral Fellow (2022 - present)

Zhaozheng has research and study experience across a wide range of disciplines. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in physics (Macquarie University, 2015) and master’s degree in mechanical engineering design (University of Manchester, 2016), he attended the University of Edinburgh for his PhD in bioengineering and completed the project in 2021. He is interested in establishing and applying varieties of mathematical models to address practical challenges in daily life. His current project is developing a multi-omics integrative analysis system to aid personalized treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Lab Alumni

Chi Shan Candy Lam, MPhil student, 2017-2019. Currently, she is working as a technical officer in CPOS, HKU.
Mandy Ying Ka Lam, Research Assistant, 2020-2021. She is current a PhD studet in the University of Oxford.
Gulam Sarwar Chuwdhury, Research Assistant, 2020-2022.
Ka Ka Yu, Research Assistant, 2022-2023.
Chow Ka Yue Larry, PhD Student & Postdoctoral Fellow, 2018-2023.