Lani Wu, PhD

Associate Professor
Endowed Title: Cecil H. and Ida Green Scholar in Biomedical Computational Science
Cecil H. and Ida Green Scholar in Biomedical Computational Science 2005-2009
Pharmacology
Graduate Program: Cancer Biology
Cell Regulation
Molecular Biophysics

Contact Information

UT Southwestern Medical Center
5323 Harry Hines Boulevard
Dallas, Texas 75390

Office Phone: 214-645-6182
Office Fax: 214-645-5965

lani.wu@utsouthwestern.edu

Biography

Dr. Lani Wu has come to biology by way of pure mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering and has worked together with Dr. Altschuler as a team since graduate school. Drs. Altschuler and Wu graduated from the University of California at San Diego with doctorates in mathematics.

Their work focused primarily on applications of systems of nonlinear partial differential equations to problems in differential geometry and topology. They left the faculty at Princeton University to join the fledgling research division at Microsoft, where they founded a number of research efforts including projects in video compression, semantic search, and speech/noise separation from multi-microphone input.

Prior to arriving at the UT Southwestern, Drs. Altschuler and Wu were at Rosetta Informatics and Fellows at the Bauer Center for Genomics Research at Harvard University. Drs. Altschuler and Wu combine their backgrounds in mathematics, signal processing, data analysis, and biology in their current focus on uncovering design principles underlying the spatial-temporal organization of molecular networks.

Education

Graduate SchoolUniversity of California-San Diego (1990)

Research Interests

Cancer
Cell polarity
Cellular heterogeneity
Systems biology

Publications

Featured
Image-based multivariate profiling of drug responses from single cells

Loo, L.H., Wu, L., Altschuler, S.J. , Nature Methods , May 2007; (4(5)):445-53

Featured
On the spontaneous emergence of polarity.

Altschuler SJ, Angenent SB, Wang Y, Wu LF , Nature, , August 2008; (454):886-890

Featured
Endocytosis optimizes the dynamic localization of membrane proteins that regulate cortical polarity

Marco, E., Wedlich-Soldner, R., Li, R., Altschuler, S.J., Wu, L.F. , Cell , April 2007; (129):411-422

Featured
Multi-dimensional drug profiling by automated microscopy.

Perlman, Z.E., Slack, M.D., Feng, Y., Mitchison, T.J., Wu, L.F., Altschuler, S.J. , Science , 2004; (306(5699)):1194-1198

Featured
Spontaneous cell polarization through actomyosin-based delivery of the Cdc42 GTPase.

Wedlich-Soldner, R., Altschuler, S.J., Wu, L.F., Li, R. , Science , 2003; (299(5610)):1231-1235

Image-based multivariate profiling of drug responses from single cells

Loo, L.H., Wu, L., Altschuler, S.J. , Nature Methods , May 2007; (2007):445-53

Systems-level analyses identify extensive coupling among gene expression machines

Maciag, K., Altschuler, S.J., Slack, M.D., Krogan, N.J., Emili, A., Greenblatt, J.F., Maniatis, T., Wu, L.F. , Molecular Systems Biology , January 2006; (2(1)):msb400045-E1-msb400045-E14

On the spontaneous emergence of polarity

Altschuler SJ, Angenent SB, Wang Y, Wu LF , Nature , August 2008; (454):886-890

An actin-based wave generator organizes cell motility

Weiner, O.D., Marganski, W.A., Wu, L.F., Altschuler, S.J., Krischner, M.W. , PLOS Biology , August 2007; (5):221

Endocytosis optimizes the dynamic localization of membrane proteins that regulate cortical polarity

Marco, E., Wedlich-Soldner, R., Li, R., Altschuler, S.J., Wu, L.F. , Cell , April 2007; (129):411-22

Honors/Awards

UTSW Endowed Scholar

(2005)