Understanding How Cell States Change in Diseases Using Single-Cell Data
Official title: Landscapes for Cell State Transition Leveraging by Single-Cell Multi-Omics
Funded at Methodist Hospital Research Institute · NIH-11394428 · Data updated 2026-11-12
A scientist team will create new math tools to map how cells change their identity in tissues related to type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, using big single-cell data.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Methodist Hospital Research Institute NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Houston, United States) |
| Project start | September 1, 2023 |
| Project end | August 31, 2028 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $403,739 |
| NIH project number | 5R35GM150460-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11394428 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Patients with type 2 diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease could benefit from advances informed by this research.
✕Less likely to help
Healthy individuals or unrelated diseases may not directly benefit from the findings.
What this research studies
This project develops new mathematical methods and software to link how cells switch states with epigenetic regulation across tissues and diseases. By leveraging large single-cell atlases, the team aims to automatically annotate cell state changes in new data sets and uncover mechanisms of organ development, regeneration, and disease progression. The work focuses on applying these insights to human diseases such as adult-onset diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease to identify potential new treatment strategies. The approach emphasizes computational innovation to reveal how cell fate decisions contribute to disease and how they might be influenced therapeutically.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, it could illuminate new molecular targets and strategies for treating diabetes and Alzheimer's disease by understanding how cells change during disease progression.
How similar studies have gone: Previous single-cell studies and atlas-based analyses have started to reveal cell dynamics, but this project introduces a novel reference-based dynamic inference approach which is still being tested.
Where this research is happening
-
Methodist Hospital Research Institute
Houston, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Wang, Guangyu — Methodist Hospital Research Institute
- Study coordinator: Wang, Guangyu
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.