Multi-Omics at Scale: Leveraging Penn State’s Expertise for Future Interdisciplinary Opportunities
October 6, 2025 @ 01:00 pm to 03:30 pm
131 HUB
University Park
Gustavo Nader
Dorothy Foher and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology; Professor of Kinesiology
This two-and-a-half–hour session on Monday October 6th, 2025, will bring together Penn State faculty with diverse expertise and shared interests in multi-omics to explore opportunities for collaboration and large-scale research initiatives. The program will feature three 20-minute talks highlighting different perspectives and recent advances in multi-omics, followed by a roundtable discussion aimed at identifying synergies, strategic directions, and organizational structures that can position Penn State at the forefront of this rapidly growing field. By connecting researchers across disciplines, the session seeks to lay the groundwork for coordinated, competitive proposal submissions that leverage the university’s unique strengths in data science, life sciences, and computational infrastructure.
Agenda:
1:00 PM | Welcome and Introductions
1:05 PM | Speaker 1: Qunhua Li, Professor, Dept of Statistics. Associate Chair, IGDP in Bioinformatics and Genomics.
Title: Linkreg: a statistical framework for linking genome-wide candidate cis-regulatory elements to target genes
1:25 PM | Q&A
1:30 PM |Speaker 2: Mingfu Shao, Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Title: Assembling full-length RNAs from modern RNA-seq data.
1:50 PM | Q&A
2:00 PM | Break
2:05 PM | Speaker 3: Emily Davenport, Assistant Professor, Dept of Biology, ECoS.
Title: Gaining insights into host-microbiome physiology via multi-omics integration
2:25 PM | Q&A
2:30 PM | Speaker 4: Sumudu Rajakaruna, Ph.D , Postdoctoral fellow, (Singh lab) Dept of Nutritional Sciences
Title: From Microbial Ecology to Integration: A User’s Perspective on Multi-Omics in Practice.
2:50 PM | Q&A
2:55 PM | Roundtable Discussion
3:25 PM | Closing remarks
We encourage you to attend the ICDS Symposium Student Poster session in Alumni Hall that is at 3:30 – 5:30 pm as you are able.