Dr. Bei obtained his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China. Right after that the joined Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC) as a postdoc and Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) as visiting research fellow. He returned to SYSUCC after years of working as research scientist at GIS. His major research interest is to dissect genetic and pathogenic factors contributing to the development of cancers, as well as the underlying mechanisms. He has published more than 100 scientific papers including those in prestigious journals such as Cell, Nat Genet, Lancet Oncol, etc. He has track-records in organizing large international collaborations. 

Cancer is a complex disease involving genetic susceptibility and acquired alterations invoked by pathogen infection and environmental exposures, which jointly foster a heterogeneous niche for tumor initiation, progression, and resistance to treatments. My major research interest is to dissect the germline variations and the acquired alterations of either host and pathogens at different dimensions as well as to uncover the underlying mechanisms by which they contribute to the heterogeneous nature of incidence, progression, and treatment resistance of cancers. We have mainly used Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) related malignancies as working models, such as Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC), Natural Killer/T cell lymphoma (NKTCL), etc, with particular interest on resolving the details of their associations with ubiquitous EBV and remarkable prevalence in Southern China. Our group has established high throughput data generation and analysis platform, which empowers novel discoveries with genome-wide genetic data, transcriptome, epigenetic data at bulk tissue/cells or single-cell levels. The clinical and follow-up information are collected for association analyses to reveal the key genes/pathways that contribute to the incidence and the clinical outcomes of cancers, such as cancer risk, drug response, prognosis, and survival. International collaboration has been a general practice in my group to synergize colleagues of different expertise and resource. 

Five representative publications within the last five years: (*corresponding author)

1. Luo CL, Xu XC, Liu CJ, He S, Chen JR, Feng YC, Liu SQ, Peng W, Zhou YQ, Liu YX, Wei PP, Li B, Mai HQ, Xia XJ, Bei JX*. RBFOX2/GOLIM4 Splicing Axis Activates Vesicular Transport Pathway to Promote Nasopharyngeal Carcinogenesis. Advanced Science 8, 2004852 (2021).

2. Ren X, Wen W, Fan X, Hou W, Su B, Cai P, Li J, Liu Y, Tang F, Zhang F, Yang Y, He J, Ma W, He J, Wang P, Cao Q, Chen F, Chen Y, Cheng X, Deng G, Deng X, Ding W, Feng Y, Gan R, Guo C, Guo W, He S, Jiang C, Liang J, Li YM, Lin J, Ling Y, Liu H, Liu J, Liu N, Liu SQ, Luo M, Ma Q, Song Q, Sun W, Wang G, Wang F, Wang Y, Wen X, Wu Q, Xu G, Xie X, Xiong X, Xing X, Xu H, Yin C, Yu D, Yu K, Yuan J, Zhang B, Zhang P, Zhang T, Zhao J, Zhao P, Zhou J, Zhou W, Zhong S, Zhong X, Zhang S, Zhu L, Zhu P, Zou B, Zou J, Zuo Z, Bai F, Huang X, Zhou P*, Jiang Q*, Huang Z*, Bei JX*, Wei L*, Bian XW*, Liu X*, Cheng T*, Li X*, Zhao P*, Wang FS*, Wang H*, Su B*, Zhang Z*, Qu K*, Wang X*, Chen J*, Jin R*, Zhang Z*. COVID-19 immune features revealed by a large-scale single-cell transcriptome atlas. Cell 184, 1895 (2021).

3. Liu Y, He S, Wang XL, Peng W, Chen QY, Chi DM, Chen JR, Han BW, Lin GW, Li YQ, Wang QY, Peng RJ, Wei PP, Guo X, Li B, Xia X, Mai HQ, Hu XD, Zhang Z*, Zeng YX* & Bei JX*. Tumour Heterogeneity and Intercellular Networks of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma at Single Cell Resolution. Nat Commun 12, 741 (2021).

4. Guo YM, Chen JR, Feng YC, Chua MLK, Zeng Y, Hui EP, Chan AKC, Tang LQ, Wang L, Cui Q, Han HQ, Luo CL, Lin GW, Liang Y, Liu Y, He ZL, Liu YX, Wei PP, Liu CJ, Peng W, Han BW, Zuo XY, Ong EHW, Yeo ELL, Low KP, Tan GS, Lim TKH, Hwang JSG, Li B, Feng QS, Xia X, Xia YF, Ko J, Dai W, Lung ML, Chan ATC, Lo DYM, Zeng MS, Mai HQ*, Liu J*, Zeng YX* & Bei JX*. Germline Polymorphisms and Length of Survival of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: An Exome-Wide Association Study in Multiple Cohorts. Advanced Science7, 1903727 (2020). 

5. Lin GW, Xu C, Chen K, Huang HQ, Chen J, Song B, Chan JKC, Li W, Liu W, Shih LY, Chuang WY, Kim WS, Tan W, Peng RJ, Laurensia Y, Cheah DMZ, Huang D, Cheng CL, Su YJ, Tan SY, Ng SB, Tang TPL, Han K, Wang VY, Jia WH, Pei Z, Li YJ, Gao S, Shi Y, Hu Z, Zhang F, Zhang B, Zeng YX, Shen H, He L, Ong CK, Lim ST, Chanock S, Kwong YL, Lin D, Rothman N, Khor CC, Lan Q & Bei JX*. Genetic risk of extranodal natural killer T-cell lymphoma: a genome-wide association study in multiple populations. Lancet Oncol 21, 306 (2020).

Updated September 2021