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Areas
Technologies

About

Our research focuses on designing innovative statistical strategies and bioinformatics tools to analyze biomedical data generated from cutting-edge technologies. We collaborate closely with research scientists both within and outside our institute, leveraging our bioinformatics expertise to interpret their data and address biological questions.

We have extensive experience and strong expertise in:
• Differential analyses of gene/transcript expression, pathways, and DNA methylation
• Detecting alternative splicing and differential exon/transcript usage
• Integration of expression, methylation, epigenetic marks, and chromatin accessibility data
• Single-cell omics analysis
• Spatial data analysis
• Applications of sequencing, single-cell, and spatial technologies in cancer research

Our longstanding collaboration with the breast cancer lab at WEHI has yielded numerous significant discoveries and high-impact publications. We are eager to form additional collaborations with other research groups both within and outside our institute to apply our bioinformatics expertise to their projects.

Publications

Selected publications from Dr Yunshun Chen

Cheng J, Jin X, Smyth GK, Chen Y. Benchmarking cell type annotation methods for 10x Xenium spatial transcriptomics data. BMC Bioinformatics. 2025;26:10.1186/s12859-025-06044-0

2025;

Ang CH, Arandjelovic P, Cheng J, Yang J, Guo F, Yu Y, Nelameham S, Whitehead L, Li J, Silver DL, Barker N, Visvader JE, Chow PKH, Smyth GK, Chen Y, Virshup DM, Fu NY. Self-maintenance of zonal hepatocytes during adult homeostasis and their complex plasticity upon distinct liver injuries. Cell Reports. 2024;44(1):10.1016/j.celrep.2024.115093

Dawson CA, Milevskiy MJG, Capaldo BD, Yip RKH, Song X, Vaillant F, Prokopuk L, Jackling FC, Smyth GK, Chen Y, Lindeman GJ, Visvader JE. Hormone-responsive progenitors have a unique identity and exhibit high motility during mammary morphogenesis. Cell Reports. 2024;43(12):10.1016/j.celrep.2024.115073

Altman JE, Olex AL, Zboril EK, Walker CJ, Boyd DC, Myrick RK, Hairr NS, Koblinski JE, Puchalapalli M, Hu B, Dozmorov MG, Chen XS, Chen Y, Perou CM, Lehmann BD, Visvader JE, Harrell JC. Single‐cell transcriptional atlas of human breast cancers and model systems. Clinical and Translational Medicine. 2024;14(10):10.1002/ctm2.70044

Nightingale R, Reehorst CM, Vukelic N, Papadopoulos N, Liao Y, Guleria S, Bell C, Vaillant F, Paul S, Luk IY, Dhillon AS, Jenkins LJ, Morrow RJ, Jackling FC, Chand AL, Chisanga D, Chen Y, Williams DS, Anderson RL, Ellis S, Meikle PJ, Shi W, Visvader JE, Pal B, Mariadason JM. Ehf controls mammary alveolar lineage differentiation and is a putative suppressor of breast tumorigenesis. Developmental Cell. 2024;59(15):10.1016/j.devcel.2024.04.022

Altman JE, Walker CJ, Zboril EK, Hairr NS, Myrick RK, Boyd DC, Koblenski JE, Puchalapalli M, Hu B, Dozmorov MG, Chen X, Chen Y, Perou CM, Lehmann BD, Visvader JE, Olex AL, Harrell JC. Abstract 1750: Decoding breast cancer: Unraveling subtype and model differences through multi-model single-cell RNA sequencing data integration. Cancer Research. 2024;84(6_Supplement):10.1158/1538-7445.am2024-1750

Baldoni PL, Chen Y, Hediyeh-zadeh S, Liao Y, Dong X, Ritchie ME, Shi W, Smyth GK. Dividing out quantification uncertainty allows efficient assessment of differential transcript expression with edgeR. Nucleic Acids Research. 2024;52(3):10.1093/nar/gkad1167

Joyce R, Pascual R, Heitink L, Capaldo BD, Vaillant F, Christie M, Tsai M, Surgenor E, Anttila CJA, Rajasekhar P, Jackling FC, Trussart M, Milevskiy MJG, Song X, Li M, Teh CE, Gray DHD, Smyth GK, Chen Y, Lindeman GJ, Visvader JE. Identification of aberrant luminal progenitors and mTORC1 as a potential breast cancer prevention target in BRCA2 mutation carriers. Nature Cell Biology. 2024;26(1):10.1038/s41556-023-01315-5

Milevskiy MJG, Coughlan HD, Kane SR, Johanson TM, Kordafshari S, Chan F, Tsai M, Surgenor E, Wilcox S, Allan RS, Chen Y, Lindeman GJ, Smyth GK, Visvader JE. Three-dimensional genome architecture coordinates key regulators of lineage specification in mammary epithelial cells. Cell Genomics. 2023;3(11):10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100424

Lab research projects

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