Overview
Cao studies and teaches computational and experimental systems biology, which is the holistic operation of cellular life in response to environment. Cao is an adviser of the Global Health and iMEP master's programs at DKU and an adjunct PhD adviser at Westlake University.
Undergraduate and Graduate students in biology, math/data science, computer science, and chemistry who are highly motivated in research are encouraged to join the Cao group.
Below is my perspective on life research.
BEL: Biology = Environment x Life
The Cao lab aims to develop new theories on BEL at the systems level, which is computational and experimental systems biology operating with external environment. In the theoretic dimension, life is a structured framework organized and regulated in such a way that it responds to internal and external perturbations in a systems manner. But the underlying provisioning of mass and energy are chemical and dictated by thermodynamics laws and ultimately governed/constrained by physics laws (e.g., quantum physics).
Therefore, the theory development is modeling the holistic operation of cellular life metabolic model-based multi-omics integration, toward understanding the holistic operations of cellular metabolism in various environment. The metabolic model is genome-scale metabolic network. A good start has been made with a highly accessed publication in Nature Communications, which develops new mathematical representation of metabolic network and its regulation.
The Cao Lab now focuses on three areas of research:
- Brain cancer: understand glioblastoma heterogeneity and development mechanism, identify therapeutical targets, and develop treatments using multi single-cell omics and biological theories
- AI-based drug repurposing for emerging human pathogens
- Systems biology evolution of bacterial extremophiles under global warming
- Systems biology mechanism of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms
Li, G., L. Liu, W. Du, H. Cao. Local flux coordination and global gene expression regulation in metabolic modeling. Nat Commun 14, 5700 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41392-6