Ya Zhang, PhD

The complex heterogeneity of cells and their interconnectedness with each other are major challenges to identifying clinically relevant measurements that reflect the state and capability of the immune system. Highly multiplexed, single-cell technologies will promote the development of more effective and precise strategies for detecting and treating neurodegenerative diseases and other immune-related disorders.

As a research scientist of the Center for Translational and Computational Neuroimmunology (CTCN) and director of Columbia University ADRC’s Neuroimmunology Core, Dr. Zhang provided top-quality, cost-effective services for deep, comprehensive, multi-omics immune profiling and monitoring at single-cell resolution.

To date, her team has generated single-cell RNA and multiome (RNA/ATACseq) data from over 2,000 human samples, primarily from brain tissue, as well as cerebrospinal fluid and blood. Dr. Zhang has also integrated cutting-edge spatial transcriptomics platforms, including MERSCOPE, which ultilizes the MERFISH method to analyze up to 1000 genes within individual cells. Furthermore, she has established robust workflows for Visium and Xenium platforms on both fresh-frozen and FFPE brain tissues, creating a comprehensive spatial omics pipeline. Her team is currently actively involved in the CASCADE project, aiming to define the effects of Alzheimer's pathologies on the aged brain in three dimensions.

The future direction of her research is the development of novel methodologies to facilitate rapid, large-scale, and affordable multi-omic single-cell sequencing and spatial omics analysis. These efforts are aimed at providing profound insights into the mechanisms of neurodegeneration and other immune-related diseases.