Professor Wang Chaolong from the School of Public Health at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), recipient of the 12th Shu Lan Medicine Youth Award, has long been devoted to interdisciplinary research on the genome and genetic mechanisms of diseases in Asian populations.

In 2008, with a bachelor's degree in physics, Wang Chaolong went to the University of Michigan in the United States to pursue a PhD in bioinformatics while simultaneously earning a master's degree in statistics. After graduating in 2012, he joined Harvard University as a postdoctoral researcher.

Wang Chaolong collected genomic data from 128 populations worldwide, applied multivariate statistical methods in population genetics, and confirmed a close correlation between genetic structure and geographic distribution. His findings were published in PLoS Genetics and were praised by the editor of Science for providing significant insights into the analysis of population structure and the development of population genetics methodologies.

He later developed algorithms such as GMMAT and CLoMAT to address technical challenges, including biases caused by low-depth sequencing and population stratification. These algorithms identified susceptibility genes for diseases such as macular degeneration, with related studies published in Nature Genetics.

In 2015, Wang Chaolong spearheaded the SG10K Asian genome project in Singapore. His team significantly reduced the cost of genetic sequencing, identified numerous Asia-specific genetic variants, and constructed reference panels tailored to Asian populations to reconstruct ancient Asian migration patterns. These findings were featured as a cover article in Cell.

In 2018, Wang Chaolong joined HUST, focusing his research on chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and cancer. His team works to identify early biomarkers for disease detection and has also developed the SAPHIRE transmission dynamics model to estimate viral transmissibility and the scale of asymptomatic infections. Their findings, which provided data support for domestic pandemic prevention policies, were published in JAMA and featured on the cover of Nature.

Source: Public Relations Office and News Center, HUST