Leyao Wang, PhD, MPH

Instructor, School of Medicine
asthma, chronic disease, data science, emerging technology, environmental health, epidemiology, genetics, global health, infectious disease, risk factors & disease risk

Dr. Wang devotes her efforts on understanding gene by environment interactions in complex disease development, especially for lung health. She has applied multiple genetic analysis methods (genome-wide association studies, linkage analysis and whole-exome sequencing analysis) into population-based studies to understand the genetic architecture of asthma in the context of specific environment. Dr. Wang is also interested in the impact of environmental exposures on commensal microbiota development and how it affects lung health. She led a family-based microbiome pilot to investigate the similarity of the airway bacterial community within and outside the household. Her research aims to extract information from population level genome and microbiome studies to facilitate evidence-based public health.