Principal Investigator/Group leader

ping.chen@ki.se OR ping.chen@helsinki.fi

As a computational biologist, I am dedicated to bridging the gap between data science and medical research. I earned my Ph.D. in Medical Systems Biology from the University of Helsinki in 2016, where my doctoral dissertation focused on the ‘Quantitative Study of Transcriptome Dynamics during Evolution and Treatment Resistance in Cancer’.

Following my Phd, I pursued received postdoctoral research training on Smart-seq2/3 single cell methodology in Rickard Sandberg’s group, and on immunometabolism in Myriam Aouadi’s group at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.

Since 2022, I have been leading my independent research group at the Division of Clinical Chemistry in KI LABMED. Our team is deeply engaged in data-driven research on human cardiometabolic diseases, encompassing both computational method development and in-depth mechanistic studies. Additionally, since September 2023, I have started a second lab at the University of Helsinki in Finland. This lab is dedicated to investigating the regulation of alternative splicing in human metabolic diseases.

Postdoc Researcher

jingyang.niu@ki.se

I obtained my PhD from the School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai JiaoTong University, China. My interests are on bioinformatics and machine learning. I am currently doing my postdoc research in Chen’s research group focusing on computational analysis and method development for single-nucleotide variant calling, including genomic variants and RNA editing. Our goal is to construct powerful SNV tools specific tailored for human metabolic disease.

PhD student (iCANDOC)

depin.wang@helsinki.fi

I am a passionate bioinformatician with shared experience between academia and the biotech industry. I am working in the fields of bioinformatics and data science to reveal the mechanisms of diseases. Currently, I am carrying out a PhD study in Chen’s research group. My research focuses on developing computational methods and analyzing data to investigate the impact of alternative splicing on metabolic disorders associated with obesity.

PhD student (iCANDOC)

simge.sengulbabal@helsinki.fi

I hold an MSc degree from the Bioinformatics and Systems Biology program at Gebze Technical University, Türkiye, where I specialized in analyzing multi-omic datasets and constructing mathematical models to explore tumor microenvironments. I joined Chen’s research group in November 2024 and I am currently pursuing my doctoral research, focusing on gene regulation traits and networks in metabolic disorders and cancer. My work bridges bioinformatics and systems biology to address critical questions in cancer progression and Immunometabolism research.

Research Assistant (Life Science Informatics)

xiyuan.zhang@helsinki.fi

I am a bioinformatics master student from the Master’s Programme in Life Science Informatics (LSI) at University of Helsinki in Finland. I received my Bachelor of engineering in bioengineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 2022. Currently, my work involves implementing bioinformatics pipelines and tools to identify alternative splicing at a single cell level.

Research Assistant (Nutrition Science)

julia.balewska@ki.se

I obtained my master’s  degree in Nutrition Science at Karolinska Institutet in 2024. My main interest is metabolic diseases. In 2023, I joined Chen’s lab to improve my knowledge on bioinformatics and completed my master thesis in 2024. My current project focuses on single-cell RNA-seq data analysis to reconstruct the differentiation trajectory of liver myeloid cells during the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In this project, I will also investigate the alternations in these cells to further understand the underlying mechanisms that drive disease progression.

Research Assistant (Life Science Informatics)

marian.kuddus@helsinki.fi

Master student (Translational Physiology and Pharmacology)

jun.jin@stud.ki.se

I am currently a master’s student at Karolinska Institutet, pursuing a degree in Translational Physiology and Pharmacology. I completed my undergraduate studies in Pharmaceutical Science at China Pharmaceutical University. As part of my ongoing research, I am working on a project related to metabolomics analysis. The goal is to build an in-house metabolomics analysis pipeline that includes preprocessing and downstream analysis.

Master student (Biomedicine)

shenwei.shi@stud.ki.se

My name is Shenwei, and I am currently enrolled in the MSc Biomedicine program at Karolinska Institutet. In 2024, I joined Chen’s research group to work on my second project and master’s thesis. My project primarily focuses on bioinformatics data analysis for metagenomics to understand their role in metabolic diseases.

Amos Bonsdorff (summer student 2024)

Sebastian Nock (Postdoc)

Qianqian Xia (Research Assistant 2024)