The Monthly Researcher Spotlight is our section highlighting the exciting work of the UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform user community. If you would like to be featured, email community@dnanexus.com.
This was simultaneously published in the August 2023 UK Biobank RAP Newsletter. You can sign up for future installments here.
This month's Spotlight features Mike Zhong, an engineer from TenSixteen Bio whose work focuses on creating workflows, apps, and other tools for bioinformatics pipelines.
Principal Software Engineer
TenSixteen Bio
What are the focus and discovery highlights of your research?
TenSixteen Bio is focused on exploring the biology of Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential (CHIP) and its role in various diseases. Our research has led to possibly the most comprehensive set of CHIP calls and the bioinformatics pipelines to make those calls.
What are some of the key questions that you are looking to answer using UKB data?
Using UKB data we connect somatic variants with germline genetics, phenotypic information, and clinical outcomes to understand the biology of clonal hematopoiesis to inform target and therapeutic discovery. By connecting these data in the large UKB cohort we’re able to answer questions about what factors predispose an individual to CHIP, how different types of CHIP progress to disease, and which targets are most amenable to therapeutic intervention. Working with the recently released proteomic data also lets us ask even more questions about the phenotypic impact of CHIP in a large cohort of individuals.
How has the UKB-RAP helped you perform your research?
UKB-RAP provides us with both the data and the computational environment to manipulate, explore, and interrogate the data required to test our hypothesis. The UKB technical support team is responsive and helpful in working hand-in-hand with our scientists to resolve any emergent issues and help us develop solutions that integrate with our own internal data and software systems.