About

Rong Fan is a professor whose research focuses on spatial multi-omics technologies and their applications in understanding tissue development, disease mechanisms, and cancer biology. His work involves developing innovative tools for spatially-resolved multi-omics sequencing, including spatial transcriptomics, spatial glycomics, and spatial CRISPR technologies. He is dedicated to elucidating the mechanisms underlying cancer development, tumor microenvironment organization, and immune responses, with an emphasis on translating these cutting-edge technologies into practical clinical settings. His background includes extensive experience in bioengineering, genomics, and clinical research, and he has contributed to advancing the field of spatial biology through the development of novel methodologies and interdisciplinary collaborations. As a leader in the field, Rong Fan's lab integrates optical imaging, genomics, and computational approaches to explore complex biological questions, aiming to provide new insights into disease progression and therapeutic targets.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Computational biology
• Immunology
• Computer Science
• Bioinformatics
• Neuroscience
• Internal medicine
• Medicine
• Evolutionary biology
• Psychology

Selected publications

• The technological landscape and applications of single-cell multi-omics

  Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology · 2023 · 902 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Computational biology
  • Biology
  DOI

• Single-cell antigen-specific landscape of CAR T infusion product identifies determinants of CD19-positive relapse in patients with ALL

  Science Advances · 2022 · 160 citations

  • Immunology
  • Medicine
  • Biology

  A notable number of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients develop CD19-positive relapse within 1 year after receiving chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy. It remains unclear if the long-term response is associated with the characteristics of CAR T cells in infusion products, hindering the identification of biomarkers to predict therapeutic outcomes. Here, we present 101,326 single-cell transcriptomes and surface protein landscape from the infusion products of 12 ALL patients. We observed substantial heterogeneity in the antigen-specific activation states, among which a deficiency of T helper 2 function was associated with CD19-positive relapse compared with durable responders (remission, >54 months). Proteomic data revealed that the frequency of early memory T cells, rather than activation or coinhibitory signatures, could distinguish the relapse. These findings were corroborated by independent functional profiling of 49 patients, and an integrative model was developed to predict the response. Our data unveil the molecular mechanisms that may inform strategies to boost specific T cell function to maintain long-term remission.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Transcriptomic taxonomy and neurogenic trajectories of adult human, macaque, and pig hippocampal and entorhinal cells

  Neuron · 2021 · 304 citations

  • Neuroscience
  • Biology
  • Psychology
  DOI

• High-Spatial-Resolution Multi-Omics Sequencing via Deterministic Barcoding in Tissue

  Cell · 2020 · 938 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Biology
  • Computational biology
  • Evolutionary biology
  DOI

Recent grants

• Administrative Core

  NIH · $21.7M · 2022–2027

• Core B - Biological Analysis

  NIH · $9.8M · 2022–2026

• NIH Grant U01DK104331

  NIH · $1.9M · 2020

• Ex vivo analysis of human brain tumor cells in a microvascular niche model

  NIH · $2.6M · 2020–2025

• CAREER: Revisiting the Central Dogma at the Genome Scale and in Single Cells

  NSF · $400k · 2014–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Yanxiang Deng

  Yale University

  90 shared

• Andrew Xiao

  84 shared

• Katerina Politi

  80 shared

• Don X. Nguyen

  80 shared

• Qin Yan

  80 shared

• Robert J. Homer

  79 shared

• Anna Arnal Estape

  79 shared

• Zenta Walther

  79 shared

Labs

• FAN LABPI

Awards & honors

• The Momentum Award, CMBE, Biomedical Engineering Society (BM…
• Benjamin Highman Endowed Lectureship, UC Davis Medical Cente…
• Class 1961 Cancer Research Award (2022)
• Fellow, the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) (2021)
• Yale Cancer Center Class of 1961 Cancer Research Award (2021…

Similar researchers at Yale University

• Mark Gersteinh-217
• Liangbing Huh-172
• Akiko Iwasakih-145
• Alan Kazdinh-142
• Douglas L. Rothmanh-125