Yanyuan Wu
Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
In South Los Angeles, most residents are Hispanic/Latino or African American. Healthcare access and living standards there are lower than anywhere else in Los Angeles County.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Genetics
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
health disparities
precision medicine
precision health
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2029
What they work on
- Provide next-generation sequencing, genomics and bioinformatics services to university investigators, so that African American and Hispanic communities are better represented in genomic research.
- Train investigators and students in sequencing technology and bioinformatics, building a precision-health workforce that serves African American and Hispanic communities in South Los Angeles.
- Support genomic and epigenomic studies, which look at genes and the chemical marks that control them, and link these data to environmental and social factors that shape health outcomes in South Los Angeles.
- Maintain one shared infrastructure Core that combines laboratory, proteomics, drug discovery, informatics, statistics and clinical research resources for social, behavioral, clinical and community-engaged research.
More about the research
These communities also have the highest rates of illness and death from cancer, cardiometabolic diseases (heart and metabolic conditions such as diabetes) and HIV/AIDS. A central question is how social, economic and environmental conditions turn into the cellular, genetic and epigenetic changes that drive poor health. Epigenetic changes are chemical marks that switch genes on or off without changing the DNA sequence. Answering this question requires genomic tools that under-resourced institutions and communities often lack.
Why it matters
The Core aims to give researchers working with African American and Hispanic communities in South Los Angeles the genomic and data tools to study why these communities carry the highest burden of cancer, cardiometabolic disease and HIV/AIDS. Linking socio-economic and environmental factors to molecular drivers of disease could reveal opportunities for interventions that reduce health disparities. It could also help train a future precision-health workforce from these communities.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Micheler Richardson
North Carolina Central University, NC·Public Health & Epidemiology
Expand shared resources for basic biomedical and behavioral research at NCCU, building on core capabilities in chemical analysis, imaging, metabolic analysis and rodent behavior studies.
Cristian Coarfa
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Genetics
Provide high-quality genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and metagenomics services, which measure DNA, gene activity, proteins, small molecules and microbes. The goal is to accelerate precision environmental health research.
Jon-Paul Bingham
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Education Research
Build an undergraduate and graduate feeder pipeline across the University of Hawaii network that supports student research and develops genomics skills.
The school
Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science: 1 labs on PI Pages, $24M a year on research.
More about Charles R Drew University of Medicine and Science
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