Paul Tran, MD/PhD

During graduate school, my primary mentor was Jin-Xiong She, with co-mentoring from Sharad Purohit and Richard McIndoe. The first half of this experience was focused on transcriptomic classification of brain cancers. This experience taught me the data analysis and coding skills necessary for processing gene expression data. During the second half of graduate school, I pivoted to research in type 1 diabetes, which has been the primary focus of the She lab for more than 20 years. I used data from the Type 1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium (PI: Steve Rich) and serum biomarker data from our local type 1 diabetes cohorts (PAGODA) and that of our collaborators at the University of Colorado Barbara Davis Diabetes Center(DAISY, PI: Marian Rewers) to fine map non-HLA genetic loci associated with type 1 diabetes. This approach allowed us to posit potential mechanisms for these associations with disease. Around 2018, Sharad Purohit and Jin-Xiong She developed a multiplex array for detecting serum anti-carbohydrate antibodies against more than 200 glycan structures (provided by Peng Wang lab and National Consortium for Function Glycomics, PI: Richard Cummings). This platform allowed us to identify a unique set of biomarkers associated with type 1 diabetes and helped generate hypotheses for other environmental factors associated with type 1 diabetes. Many of the carbohydrates in our panel are from foreign sources to humans, including microbial and plant origins. The results from this work are currently under review, but provide an exciting avenue for biomarker discovery and environmental exposure association with immune-related diseases.