Dr. Liu is an Associate Professor and Ph.D. supervisor at the School of Public Health (Shenzhen), Sun Yat-sen University. Her group focused on human statistical genetics and bioinformatics research. Her expertise lies in the systematic analysis of key genes, genetic and evolutionary features, and causative environmental risk factors associated with human diseases and traits through bioinformatics, statistical, and machine learning algorithms. Her research aims to explore the molecular and systemic etiology of complex diseases and establish individual and population disease prediction and intervention models. Her major academic contributions include:

• Development of precise structural variation detection algorithms and elucidation of the frequency distribution and evolutionary patterns of structural variations in a pedigree population (co-first author in Nature, co-first author in Nature Communications, first author in GigaScience).
• Pioneering the use of large-scale ultra-low-depth sequencing data to investigate the genetics and molecular characteristics of complex diseases and quantitative traits, revealing the evolutionary history and plasma virus infection patterns in the Chinese population, and uncovering genes related to reproductive traits such as fertility age and twin pregnancy (first author in Cell).

Her work was published in high-profile journals such as CELL, NATURE, and Cell Discovery as a (co)-first or (co)-corresponding author and funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shenzhen Stable Support Fund, Guangdong Provincial Basic and Applied Basic Research Fund and National Key Research and Development Program.

Current Position

Associate Professor, Unit of Medical Statistics and Systems Biology, School of Public Health (Shenzhen), Sun Yat-sen University

Concurrent post

• Professor in Genomics, BGI-Shenzhen Life-Science Institute
• Professor in Bioinformatics, Center of Excellence for Omics Research, Beijing Tiantan Hospital
• Guest editor, Frontier in Genetics
• Genome Denmark Consortium (2012-2017)

Research Career

• 2021 - present: Associate professor, Sun Yat-sen University, School of Public Health (Shenzhen)
• 2020 – 2021: Senior Research Scientist, BGI-Shenzhen Life-Science Institute
• 2018 – 2019: Senior Engineer in Information Research and Development, BGI-shenzhen Life-Science Institute

Education/Training

• 2015/05-2017/12 PhD in Bioinformatics, Bioinformatics Center, University of Copenhagen, Supervisor： Profs. Anders Krogh & Anders Albrechtsen
• 2012/09-2015/04 MSc in Bioinformatics, Bioinformatics Center, University of Copenhagen, Supervisor： Prof. Anders Krogh
• 2007/09-2011/07 BSc in Ecology, Department of Life Science, Sun Yat-sen University

Teaching

• Fundamentals and Experiments in Medical Informatics
• Medical Informatics Programming
• Python and Computational Biology
• Medical statistics
• Bioinformatics
• Epidemiological Methods and Applications

Grants

• National Key Research and Development Program Project: Mechanisms of Ischemic Cerebrovascular Disease Occurrence and Development Based on Multi-omics Approaches, 2022.12 – 2025.12, 15,000,000RMB, Project Core Member
• National Key Research and Development Program Project: Research on Infection and Transmission Characteristics of Respiratory Viruses, Including the Novel Coronavirus, 2021.12 – 2024.11, 29,570,000RMB, Project Core Member
• Guangdong Provincial Basic and Applied Basic Research Fund - Key Project: 2022.01 – 2025.09, 1,000,000 RMB, co-Principal Investigator
• Shenzhen Stable Support Program: 2022.09.01 – 2025.08.31, 300,000RMB, Principal Investigator
• Sun Yat-sen University “Hundred Talents Program”: 2021.01 – 2023.12, 600,000 RMB, Principal Investigator
• National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Young Scientists Fund Project: 2020.01 – 2022.12, 250,000 RMB, Principal Investigator

Publications

• All publications at Google scholar

(# first authors; *corresponding authors)

1. Cheng S#, Xu Z#, Bian S, Chen X, Shi Y, Li Y, Duan Y, Liu Y, Lin J, Jiang Y, Jing J, Li Z, Wang Y, Meng X, Liu Y, Fang M, Jin X, Xu X, Wang J, Wang C, Li H, Liu S*, Wang Y*. The STROMICS genome study: deep whole genome sequencing and analysis of 10K Chinese patients with ischemic stroke reveal complex genomic and phenotypic interplay. Cell Discov. 2023 Jun 17. (JCR Q1, IF 38.1)
2. Wu P#, Ding L#, Li X#, Liu S#, Cheng F#, He Q, Xiao M, Wu P, Hou H, Jiang M, Long P, Wang H, Liu L, Qu M, Shi X, Jiang Q, Mo T, Ding W, Fu Y, Han S, Huo X, Zeng Y, Zhou Y, Zhang Q, Ke J, Xu X, Ni W, Shao Z, Wang J, Liu P, Li Z, Jin Y, Zheng F, Wang F, Liu L, Li W, Liu K, Peng R, Xu X, Lin Y, Gao H, Shi L, Geng Z, Mu X, Yan Y, Wang K, Wu D, Hao X, Cheng S, Qiu G, Guo H, Li K, Chen G, Sun Z, Lin X, Jin X*, Wang F*, Sun C*, Wang C*. Trans-ethnic genome-wide association study of severe COVID-19. Commun Biology. 2021 Aug 31. (JCR Q2, IF 6.6)
3. Liu R, Wu P, Ogrodzki P, Mahmoud S, Liang K, Liu P, Francis S, Khalak H, Liu D, Li J, Ma T, Chen F, Liu W, Huang X, He W, Yuan Z, Qiao N, Meng X, Alqarni B, Kusuma J, Lin L, Jin X, Yang C, Anton X, Koshy A, Yang H, Xu X, Wang J, Xiao P, Kaabi N, Fasihuddin M, Selvaraj F, Weber S, Hosani F, Liu S*, Zaher W*. Genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in the United Arab Emirates reveals novel virus mutation, patterns of co-infection and tissue specific host innate immune response. Sci Reports. 2021 Jul 7. (JCR Q2, IF 5.0)
4. Wang F#, Huang S#, Gao H#, Zhou Y#, Lai C, Li Z, Xian W, Qian X, Li Z, Huang Y, Tang Q, Liu P, Chen R, Liu R, Li X, Xin T, Xuan Z, Bai Y, Duan G, Zhang T, Xu X, Wang J, Yang H, Liu S*, He Q*, Jin X*, Liu L*: Initial Whole Genome Sequencing and Analysis of the Host Genetic Contribution to COVID-19 Severity and Susceptibility. Cell Discov. 2020 Nov; 6(1):0-83. (JCR Q1, IF 38.1)
5. Liu S#, Huang S#, Chen F#, Zhao L#, Yuan Y#, Francis S, Fang L, Li Z, Lin L, Liu R, Zhang Y, Xu H, Li S, Zhou Y, Liu Q, Walters R, Lin K, Ju J, Korneliussen T, Yang M, Fu Q, Wang J, Zhou L, Krogh A, Zhang H, Wang W, Chen Z, Yin Y, Yang H, Mao M, Shendure J, Wang J*, Albrechtsen A*, Jin X*, Nielsen R*, Xu X*. Genomic Analyses from Non-invasive Prenatal Testing Reveal Genetic Associations, Patterns of Viral Infections, and Chinese Population History. Cell. 2018 Oct 4:176(2). (JCR Q1, IF 66.9)
6. Maretty L#, Jensen JM#, Petersen B#, Sibbesen JA#, Liu S#, Villesen P#, SkovL#, Belling K#, Theil Have C, Izarzugaza JMG, Grosjean M, Bork-Jensen J, Grove J,Als TD, Huang S, Chang Y, Xu R, Ye W, Rao J, Guo X, Sun J, Cao H, Ye C, van Beusekom J, Espeseth T, Flindt E, Friborg RM, Halager AE, Le Hellard S, Hultman CM, Lescai F, Li S, Lund O, Løngren P, Mailund T, Matey-Hernandez ML, Mors O, Pedersen CNS, Sicheritz-Pontén T, Sullivan P, Syed A, Westergaard D, Yadav R, Li N, Xu X, Hansen T, Krogh A, Bolund L, Sørensen TIA, Pedersen O, Gupta R, Rasmussen S, Besenbacher S, Børglum AD, Wang J, Eiberg H, Kristiansen K*, Brunak S*, Schierup MH*. Sequencing and de novo assembly of 150 genomes from Denmark as a population reference. Nature. 2017 Aug 3;548(7665):87-91. (JCR Q1, IF 69.5)
7. Liu S#, Huang S#, Rao J#, Ye W#; Genome Denmark Consortium, Krogh A*, Wang J*. Discovery, genotyping and characterization of structural variation and novel sequence at single nucleotide resolution from de novo genome assemblies on a population scale. Gigascience. 2015 Dec 24;4:64. (JCR Q1, IF 7.7)
8. Besenbacher S#, Liu S#, Izarzugaza JM#, Grove J, Belling K, Bork-Jensen J, Huang S, Als TD, Li S, Yadav R, Rubio-García A, Lescai F, Demontis D, Rao J, Ye W, Mailund T, Friborg RM, Pedersen CN, Xu R, Sun J, Liu H, Wang O, Cheng X, Flores D, Rydza E, Rapacki K, Damm Sørensen J, Chmura P, Westergaard D, Dworzynski P, Sørensen TI, Lund O, Hansen T, Xu X, Li N, Bolund L, Pedersen O, Eiberg H, Krogh A, Børglum AD, Brunak S, Kristiansen K, Schierup MH, Wang J, Gupta R, Villesen P, Rasmussen S. Novel variation and de novo mutation rates in population-wide de novo assembled Danish trios. Nat Commun. 2015 Jan 19;6:5969. (JCR Q1, IF 17.7)
9. Zhao M#, Liu S#, Luo S, Wu H, Tang M, Cheng W, Zhang Q, Zhang P, Yu X, Xia Y, Yi N, Gao F, Wang L, Yung S, Chan TM, Sawalha AH, Richardson B, Gershwin ME, Li N*, Lu Q*. DNA methylation and mRNA and microRNA expression of SLE CD4+ T cells correlate with disease phenotype. J Autoimmun. 2014 Nov; 54:127-36. (JCR Q1, IF 14.5)
10. Liu S#, Lin J#, Wu H#, Wang C, Huang S, Luo Y, Sun J, Zhou J, Yan S, He J*, Wang J*, He Z*. Bisulfite sequencing reveals that Aspergillus flavus holds a hollow in DNA methylation. PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e30349. (JCR Q2, IF 3.8)

Patents

1. Base mutation detection method and apparatus based on sequencing data, and storage medium, 2023, PCT/CN2019/086972 (rank 1/3)
2. A Mutation Detection Method and Device Based on Genome Assembly, 2015, ZL201510043793.2 (rank 2/4)

Conference

1. Siyang Liu, Multi-trait genome-wide association study in 34,394 Chinese women reveals the genetic architecture of plasma metabolites during pregnancy, 2023 International conference of bioinformatics and computation biology, Hangzhou, China, 2023 Apr 22nd
2. Siyang Liu, Low pass genomes of 141,431 Chinese reveal patterns of viral infection, novel phenotypic associations, and the genetic history of China, 2018 The 52th European Human Genetic Conference, Milan, Italy, 2018 Jun 18th
3. Siyang Liu, Perspectives on large scale population genetics, Shenzhen International Genomics and Biomedical Peak Forum", Shenzhen, 2018.Oct.24th
4. Siyang Liu, Utilizing Cell-free DNA in Population and Medical Genetics, The 10th Academic Festival of Zhongshan Medical College, Guangzhou, 2018.Dec.1st
5. Siyang Liu, Analyzing low-pass whole genome sequencing of over 140, 000 individuals from throughout China, 2017 The Fifteenth Asia Pacific Bioinformatics Conference, City University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Research Institute, Shenzhen, 2017 Jan 17th

Honors and Awards

• 2018 Important Scientific Research Achievement Award, 2018, BGI-Shenzhen Life Science Institute
• 2018 Shenzhen High-level Overseas Talent
• 2012-2014 Danish Government Scholarship
• 2007-2010 Chinese National Governmental Scholarship