Han Liang, Ph.D.
Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Division of Discovery Science
About Dr. Liang
Dr. Liang is a Barnhart Family Distinguished Professor in Targeted Therapies and the Deputy Chair of Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also a professor in the Department of Systems Biology. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Peking University (China) in 2001 and Ph.D. in quantitative and computational biology from Princeton University (NJ, USA) in 2006. Dr. Liang then finished his postdoctoral training in evolutionary and computational genomics at the University of Chicago. He joined MD Anderson Cancer Center as Assistant Professor and started his own group in 2009.
At MD Anderson, Dr. Liang’s group focuses on bioinformatics tool development, integrated cancer genomic analysis, RNA regulation/modification, and cancer systems biology. His systematic studies on enhancer regulation, RNA editing, functional proteomics, sex effects, and driver mutations in cancer have generated profound impacts on the biomedical research community and attracted wide attention such as The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. The bioinformatics tools his group developed (e.g., TCPA, TANRIC, FASMIC, DrBioRight) collectively have > 110,000 active users worldwide. Since 2010, he has published > 160 papers (total citation >30,000 times), including >40 corresponding-author papers in top journals such as Cell, Cancer Cell, Nature Genetics, Nature Biotechnology, and Nature Methods.
Dr. Liang have taken leadership roles in large cancer consortium projects, including c hair of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) PanCanAtlas working groups, one co-leader of International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) Pan-Cancer Whole Genome Analysis Project, and one co-chair of NCI Genomic Data Commons (GDC) QC working group. He won several awards including MD Anderson R. Lee Clark Fellow Award (2014), the University of Texas System STARS Award (2015), MD Anderson Faculty Scholar Award (2018), and AACR Team Science Award (2020). He is an elected Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). More information is available at http://odin.mdacc.tmc.edu/~hliang1/.
Present Title & Affiliation
Primary Appointment
Barnhart Family Distinguished Professor in Targeted Therapies, Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Division of Basic Science Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Professor, Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Division of Basic Science Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Deputy Department Chair, Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Division of Basic Science Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Dual/Joint/Adjunct Appointment
Professor, Department of Systems Biology, Division of Basic Science Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX
Regular Member, The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston, Houston, TX
Faculty Member, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX
Education & Training
Degree-Granting Education
| 2006 | Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA, PHD, Quantitative and Computational Biology |
| 2001 | Peking University, Beijing, CHN, BS, Chemistry |
Experience & Service
Academic Appointments
Associate Professor, Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 2014 - 2018
Associate Professor, Department of Systems Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 2014 - 2018
Assistant Professor, Division of Quantitative Sciences, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, 2009 - 2014
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Department of Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2006 - 2009
Honors & Awards
| 2024 | AIMBE Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering |
| 2023 | R. Lee Clark Prize, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
| 2022 | Odyssey Fellowship Outstanding Research Publication Award, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
| 2020 | AACR Team Science Award, American Association for Cancer Research |
| 2020 | AAAS Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| 2018 | Faculty Scholar Award, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
| 2017 | MD Anderson Publications Gallery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
| 2016 | Institutional Nominee for the Blavatnik Award |
| 2016 | "Wall of Science" Publication Gallery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
| 2015 | STARS Award, The University of Texas System |
| 2014 | R. Lee Clark Fellow Award (junior faculty), The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
| 2012 | Uterine SPORE Career Development Award, NIH/NCI |
| 2011 | Institutional Nominee for Mary Kay Research Fund |
| 2008 | SMBE Travel Award, SMBE Society |
| 2007 | RNA Conference Travel Fellowship, RNA Society |
| 2005 | Association of Princeton Graduate Alumnae Travel Fellowship, Princeton University |
| 2001 | Best Senior Thesis Award, Peking University, China |
| 2000 | Outstanding Student Award, Peking University, China |
| 1998 | Dupont Fellowship, Peking University, China |
Selected Publications
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Zhou Z, Chen MM, Luo Y, Mojumdar K, Peng X, Chen H, Kumar SV, Akbani R, Lu Y, Liang H. Tumor-intrinsic SIRPA promotes sensitivity to checkpoint inhibition immunotherapy in melanoma. Cancer Cell 40(11):1324-1340.e8, 2022. e-Pub 2022. PMID: 36332624.
- Li J, Chen H, Wang Y, Chen MM, Liang H. Next-generation analytics for omics data. Cancer Cell 39(1):3-6, 2021. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32976776.
- Zhao W, Li J, Chen MM, Luo Y, Ju Z, Nesser NK, Johnson-Camacho K, Boniface CT, Lawrence Y, Pande NT, Davies MA, Herlyn M, Muranen T, Zervantonakis IK, von Euw E, Schultz A, Kumar SV, Korkut A, Spellman PT, Akbani R, Slamon DJ, Gray JW, Brugge JS, Lu Y, Mills GB, Liang H. Large-Scale Characterization of Drug Responses of Clinically Relevant Proteins in Cancer Cell Lines. Cancer Cell 38(6):829-843.e4, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 33157050.
- Chen H, Liang H. A high-resolution map of human enhancer RNA loci characterizes super-enhancer activities in cancer. Cancer Cell 38(5):701-715.e5, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 33007258.
- Yuan Y, Ju YS, Kim Y, Li J, Wang Y, Yoon CJ, Yang Y, Martincorena I, Creighton CJ, Weinstein JN, Xu Y, Han L, Kim HL, Nakagawa H, Park K, Campbell PJ, Liang H, PCAWG Consortium. Comprehensive molecular characterization of mitochondrial genomes in human cancers. Nat Genet 52(3):342-352, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32024997.
- Li Z, Gao X, Peng X, May Chen MJ, Li Z, Wei B, Wen X, Wei B, Dong Y, Bu Z, Wu A, Wu Q, Tang L, Li Z, Liu Y, Zhang L, Jia S, Zhang L, Shan F, Zhang J, Wu X, Ji X, Ji K, Wu X, Shi J, Xing X, Wu J, Lv G, Shen L, Ji X, Liang H*, Ji J. Multi-omics characterization of molecular features of gastric cancer correlated with response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Sci Adv 6(9):eaay4211, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32133402 *co-corresponding author.
- Chen H, Li J, Wang Y, Ng PK, Tsang YH, Shaw KR, Mills GB, Liang H. Comprehensive assessment of computational algorithms in predicting cancer driver mutations. Genome Biol 21(1):43, 2020. e-Pub 2020. PMID: 32079540.
- Gao GF, Parker JS, Reynolds SM, Silva TC, Wang LB, Zhou W, Akbani R, Bailey M, Balu S, Berman BP, Brooks D, Chen H, Cherniack AD, Demchok JA, Ding L, Felau I, Gaheen S, Gerhard DS, Heiman DI, Hernandez KM, Hoadley KA, Jayasinghe R, Kemal A, Knijnenburg TA, Laird PW, Mensah MKA, Mungall AJ, Robertson AG, Shen H, Tarnuzzer R, Wang Z, Wyczalkowski M, Yang L, Zenklusen JC, Zhang Z, Genomic Data Analysis Network, Liang H*, Noble MS. Before and After: Comparison of Legacy and Harmonized TCGA Genomic Data Commons' Data. Cell Syst 9(1):24-34.e10, 2019. PMID: 31344359 *lead corresponding author.
- Ye Y, Hu Q, Chen H, Liang K, Yuan Y, Xiang Y, Ruan H, Zhang Z, Song A, Zhang H, Liu L, Diao L, Lou Y, Zhou B, Wang L, Zhou S, Gao J, Jonasch E, Lin SH, Xia Y, Lin C, Yang L, Mills GB, Liang H*, Han L. Characterization of Hypoxia-associated Molecular Features to Aid Hypoxia-Targeted Therapy. Nat Metab 1(4):431-444, 2019. e-Pub 2019. PMID: 31984309 *co-corresponding author.
- Chen H, Li C, Zhou Z, Liang H. Fast-evolving human-specific neural enhancers are associated with aging-related diseases. Cell Syst 6(5):604-611.e4, 2018. PMID: 29792826.
- Chen H, Li C, Peng X, Zhou Z, Weinstein JN, Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network, Liang H. A Pan-Cancer Analysis of Enhancer Expression in Nearly 9000 Patient Samples. Cell 173(2):386-399.e12, 2018. PMID: 29625054.
- Ge Z, Leighton JS, Wang Y, Peng X, Chen Z, Chen H, Sun Y, Yao F, Li J, Zhang H, Liu J, Shriver CD, Hu H, Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network, Piwnica-Worms H, Ma L, Liang H. Integrated Genomic Analysis of the Ubiquitin Pathway across Cancer Types. Cell Rep 23(1):213-226.e3, 2018. PMID: 29617661.
- Ng PK, Li J, Jeong KJ, Shao S, Chen H, Tsang YH, Sengupta S, Wang Z, Bhavana VH, Tran R, Soewito S, Minussi DC, Moreno D, Kong K, Dogruluk T, Lu H, Gao J, Tokheim C, Zhou DC, Johnson AM, Zeng J, Ip CKM, Ju Z, Wester M, Yu S, Li Y, Vellano CP, Schultz N, Karchin R, Ding L, Lu Y, Cheung LWT, Chen K, Shaw KR, Meric-Bernstam F, Scott KL, Yi S, Sahni N, Liang H*, Mills GB. Systematic Functional Annotation of Somatic Mutations in Cancer. Cancer Cell 33(3):450-462.e10, 2018. PMID: 29533785 *lead corresponding author.
- Wang Y, Xu X, Yu S, Jeong KJ, Zhou Z, Han L, Tsang YH, Li J, Chen H, Mangala LS, Yuan Y, Eterovic AK, Lu Y, Sood AK, Scott KL, Mills GB, Liang H. Systematic characterization of A-to-I RNA editing hotspots in microRNAs across human cancers. Genome Res 27(7):1112-1125, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28411194.
- Zhang Y, Kwok-Shing Ng P, Kucherlapati M, Chen F, Liu Y, Tsang YH, de Velasco G, Jeong KJ, Akbani R, Hadjipanayis A, Pantazi A, Bristow CA, Lee E, Mahadeshwar HS, Tang J, Zhang J, Yang L, Seth S, Lee S, Ren X, Song X, Sun H, Seidman J, Luquette LJ, Xi R, Chin L, Protopopov A, Westbrook TF, Shelley CS, Choueiri TK, Ittmann M, Van Waes C, Weinstein JN, Liang H, Henske EP, Godwin AK, Park PJ, Kucherlapati R, Scott KL, Mills GB, Kwiatkowski DJ, Creighton CJ. A Pan-Cancer Proteogenomic Atlas of PI3K/AKT/mTOR Pathway Alterations. Cancer Cell 31(6):820-832.e3, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28528867.
- Lin A, Hu Q, Li C, Xing Z, Ma G, Wang C, Li J, Ye Y, Yao J, Liang K, Wang S, Park PK, Marks JR, Zhou Y, Zhou J, Hung MC, Liang H, Hu Z, Shen H, Hawke DH, Han L, Zhou Y, Lin C, Yang L. The LINK-A lncRNA interacts with PtdIns(3,4,5)P3 to hyperactivate AKT and confer resistance to AKT inhibitors. Nat Cell Biol 19(3):238-251, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28218907.
- Li J, Zhao W, Akbani R, Liu W, Ju Z, Ling S, Vellano CP, Roebuck P, Yu Q, Eterovic AK, Byers LA, Davies MA, Deng W, Gopal YN, Chen G, von Euw EM, Slamon D, Conklin D, Heymach JV, Gazdar AF, Minna JD, Myers JN, Lu Y, Mills GB, Liang H. Characterization of Human Cancer Cell Lines by Reverse Phase Protein Arrays. Cancer Cell 31(2):225-239, 2017. PMID: 28196595.
- Li C, Wang S, Xing Z, Lin A, Liang K, Song J, Hu Q, Yao J, Chen Z, Park PK, Hawke DH, Zhou J, Zhou Y, Zhang S, Liang H, Hung MC, Gallick GE, Han L, Lin C, Yang L. A ROR1-HER3-lncRNA signalling axis modulates the Hippo-YAP pathway to regulate bone metastasis. Nat Cell Biol 19(2):106-119, 2017. e-Pub 2017. PMID: 28114269.
- Yuan Y, Liu L, Chen H, Wang Y, Xu Y, Mao H, Li J, Mills GB, Shu Y, Li L, Liang H. Comprehensive Characterization of Molecular Differences in Cancer between Male and Female Patients. Cancer Cell 29(5):711-22, 2016. PMID: 27165743.
- Liu X, Xiao ZD, Han L, Zhang J, Lee SW, Wang W, Lee H, Zhuang L, Chen J, Lin HK, Wang J, Liang H, Gan B. LncRNA NBR2 engages a metabolic checkpoint by regulating AMPK under energy stress. Nat Cell Biol 18(4):431-42, 2016. e-Pub 2016. PMID: 26999735.
- Lin A, Li C, Xing Z, Hu Q, Liang K, Han L, Wang C, Hawke DH, Wang S, Zhang Y, Wei Y, Ma G, Park PK, Zhou J, Zhou Y, Hu Z, Zhou Y, Marks JR, Liang H, Hung MC, Lin C, Yang L. The LINK-A lncRNA activates normoxic HIF1α signalling in triple-negative breast cancer. Nat Cell Biol 18(2):213-24, 2016. e-Pub 2016. PMID: 26751287.
- Han L, Diao L, Yu S, Xu X, Li J, Zhang R, Yang Y, Werner HM, Eterovic AK, Yuan Y, Li J, Nair N, Minelli R, Tsang YH, Cheung LW, Jeong KJ, Roszik J, Ju Z, Woodman SE, Lu Y, Scott KL, Li JB, Mills GB, Liang H. The Genomic Landscape and Clinical Relevance of A-to-I RNA Editing in Human Cancers. Cancer Cell 28(5):515-28. e-Pub 2015. PMID: 26439496.
- Li J, Han L, Roebuck P, Diao L, Liu L, Yuan Y, Weinstein JN, Liang H. TANRIC: An Interactive Open Platform to Explore the Function of lncRNAs in Cancer. Cancer Res 75(18):3728-37, 2015. e-Pub 2015. PMID: 26208906.
- Cheung LW, Yu S, Zhang D, Li J, Ng PK, Panupinthu N, Mitra S, Ju Z, Yu Q, Liang H, Hawke DH, Lu Y, Broaddus RR, Mills GB. Naturally occurring neomorphic PIK3R1 mutations activate the MAPK pathway, dictating therapeutic response to MAPK pathway inhibitors. Cancer Cell 26(4):479-94, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 25284480.
- Zhang P, Wei Y, Wang L, Debeb BG, Yuan Y, Zhang J, Yuan J, Wang M, Chen D, Sun Y, Woodward WA, Liu Y, Dean DC, Liang H, Hu Y, Ang KK, Hung MC, Chen J, Ma L. ATM-mediated stabilization of ZEB1 promotes DNA damage response and radioresistance through CHK1. Nat Cell Biol 16(9):864-75, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 25086746.
- Wang Y, Waters J, Leung ML, Unruh A, Roh W, Shi X, Chen K, Scheet P, Vattathil S, Liang H, Multani A, Zhang H, Zhao R, Michor F, Meric-Bernstam F, Navin NE. Clonal Evolution in Breast Cancer Revealed by Single Nucleus Genome Sequencing. Nature 512(7513):155-60, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 25079324.
- Yuan Y, Van Allen EM, Omberg L, Wagle N, Amin-Mansour A, Sokolov A, Byers LA, Xu Y, Hess KR, Diao L, Han L, Huang X, Lawrence MS, Weinstein JN, Stuart JM, Mills GB, Garraway LA, Margolin AA, Getz G, Liang H. Assessing the clinical utility of cancer genomic and proteomic data across tumor types. Nat Biotechnol 32(7):644-652, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 24952901.
- Piao HL, Yuan Y, Wang M, Sun Y, Liang H, Ma L. α-catenin acts as a tumour suppressor in E-cadherin-negative basal-like breast cancer by inhibiting NF-κB signalling. Nat Cell Biol 16(3):245-54, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 24509793.
- Yang Y, Han L, Yuan Y, Li J, Hei N, Liang H. Gene co-expression network analysis reveals common system-level properties of prognostic genes across cancer types. Nat Commun 5:3231, 2014. PMID: 24488081.
- Han L, Yuan Y, Zheng S, Yang Y, Li J, Edgerton ME, Diao L, Xu Y, Verhaak RG, Liang H. The Pan-Cancer analysis of pseudogene expression reveals biologically and clinically relevant tumour subtypes. Nat Commun 5:3963, 2014. e-Pub 2014. PMID: 24999802.
- Li J, Lu Y, Akbani R, Ju Z, Roebuck PL, Liu W, Yang JY, Broom BM, Verhaak RG, Kane DW, Wakefield C, Weinstein JN, Mills GB, Liang H. TCPA: A Resource for Cancer Functional Proteomics Data. Nat Methods 10(11):1046-1047. e-Pub 2013. PMID: 24037243.
- Omberg L, Ellrott K, Yuan Y, Kandoth C, Wong C, Kellen MR, Friend SH, Stuart J, Liang H, Margolin AA. Enabling transparent and collaborative computational analysis of 12 tumor types within The Cancer Genome Atlas. Nat Genet 45(10):1121-6, 2013. PMID: 24071850.
- Liang H*, Cheung LW, Li J, Ju Z, Yu S, Stemke-Hale K, Dogruluk T, Lu Y, Liu X, Gu C, Guo W, Scherer SE, Carter H, Westin SN, Dyer MD, Verhaak RG, Zhang F, Karchin R, Liu CG, Lu KH, Broaddus RR, Scott KL, Hennessy BT, Mills GB. Whole-exome sequencing combined with functional genomics reveals novel candidate driver cancer genes in endometrial cancer. Genome Res 22(11):2120-9, 2012. e-Pub 2012. PMID: 23028188 (*corresponding author).
- Chen D, Sun Y, Wei Y, Zhang P, Rezaeian AH, Teruya-Feldstein J, Gupta S, Liang H, Lin HK, Hung MC, Ma L. LIFR is a Breast Cancer Metastasis Suppressor Upstream of the Hippo-YAP Pathway and a Prognostic Marker. Nat Med 18(10):1511-7, 2012. e-Pub 2012. PMID: 23001183.
- Li J, Roebuck P, Grünewald S, Liang H. SurvNet: a web server for identifying network-based biomarkers that most correlate with patient survival data. Nucleic Acids Res 40(W):W123-126, 2012. e-Pub 2012. PMID: 22570412.
Invited Articles
- Liang H, Kim YH. Identifying molecular drivers of gastric cancer through next-generation sequencing. Cancer Lett 340(2):241-6, 2013. e-Pub 2012. PMID: 23178814.
Editorials
- Liang H. Decoding the Dual-coding Region: Key Factors Influencing the Translational Potential of a Two-ORF-containing Transcript. Cell Res 20(5):508-9, 2010. PMID: 20436511.
Grant & Contract Support
| Title: | TCPA: an Integrated Bioinformatics Resource for Functional Proteomic Data |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Principal Investigator |
| Title: | Integrated analysis of protein expression data from the Reverse Phase Protein Array (RPPA) platform |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Co-Investigator |
| Title: | Mechanistic maps of adaptive responses to therapeutic stress to optimize combination therapies |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Co-Principal Investigator |
| Title: | Characterization and modeling of m6A RNA methylation in cancer |
| Funding Source: | NIH/NCI |
| Role: | Principal Investigator |
Patient Reviews
CV information above last modified December 17, 2024