Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Cincinnati Children's
Biography
I am a computational biologist specializing in single-cell and spatially resolved transcriptomics, with a focus on developing mechanistic and predictive models of cellcell communication in human disease. My group creates computational frameworks that integrate spatial transcriptomics, histology, and regulatory network inference to uncover how tissue-embedded signaling circuits drive pathogenesis. I have led the development of widely used spatial omics tools, including Sprod for denoising spatial transcriptomics, Spacia for inferring functional cellcell communication, and TPS for histology-guided tissue mapping (published across Nature Methods and EbioMedicine). A major application of my work centers on autoimmune liver diseases, where we use spatial multi-omics and systems modeling to define injury-associated signaling pathways, stromalimmune interactions, and molecular determinants of fibrosis and regeneration. My program aims to translate spatially resolved biology into mechanistic insight and therapeutic direction for immune-mediated liver disorders.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2026 Silicon Valley
Track Chair:
Christina Curtis, Stanford
PMWC Award Ceremony
• W.E. Moerner, Stanford – Nobel Laureate
• Priscilla Chan, Co-founder & Co-CEO, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
• Serge Saxonov, 10x Genomics
Honorees Fireside
• Chair: Christina Curtis, Stanford
• W.E. Moerner, Stanford — Nobel Laureate
• Priscilla Chan, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
• Serge Saxonov, 10x Genomics
Unraveling Tissue Architecture with Single-Cell & Spatial Multi-Omics
• Joakim Lundeberg, SciLifeLab
• Garry P. Nolan, Stanford
• Tae Hyun Hwang, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
• Michael Angelo, Stanford
Scaling Spatial Genomics for Routine Clinical Discovery
• Jeremy Schurman, Singular Genomics
Nanomechanical Biomarkers: Tissue-Stiffness Meets Spatial Multi-Omics in Oncology
• Chair: Marija Plodinec, ARTIDIS
Single-Cell Genotype and Targeted Gene Expression Assay
• Zivjena Vucetic, Mission Bio
Tumor Evolution & Clonal Dynamics: From Models to Monitoring
• Chair: Christina Curtis, Stanford
Personal Omics at Scale – What Longitudinal Profiles Add to Early Detection
• Michael Snyder, Stanford
Multi-Omics-Driven Early Detection: Beyond Liquid Biopsy
• Ash Alizadeh, Stanford
• Alex Aravanis, Moonwalk Biosciences
• Sara Ahadi, OmicsEra
AI in Molecular Diagnostics: Integrating Multi-Omics & Clinical Data
• Chair: Marina Sirota, UCSF
• Olivier Gevaert, Stanford
• Rebecca Critchley-Thorne, Castle Biosciences
• Lihua Lei, Stanford
The Pre-Analytics Playbook for Single-Cell & Spatial Oncology
• Aruna Ayer, BD
