Haoyu Cheng, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science (BIDS) and affiliated faculty at the Yale Center for Genomic Health, has received a Program for the Promotion of Interdisciplinary Team Science (POINTS) award for the project "A scalable, low-cost long-read sequencing platform for clinical genomics in common and rare diseases." The award totals $150,000 and runs from July 2026 through June 2028.
Cheng serves as a multiple principal investigator alongside lead principal investigator Yong-Hui Jiang, MD, PhD, professor of genetics, Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Neuroscience, and chief of medical genetics. Co-investigators include Lucila Ohno-Machado, MD, MBA, PhD, Waldemar von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, deputy dean for biomedical informatics, and chair of BIDS; and Hua Xu, PhD, Robert T. McCluskey Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science and vice chair for research and development in BIDS.
The project aims to develop a scalable, low-cost long-read sequencing platform capable of accurately resolving complex genomic "dark regions" that current short-read approaches characterize poorly. The team will apply the platform to both cardiovascular disease and rare disease diagnosis.