Dr Wei Zhang is the author of "The HapMap Resource is Providing New Insights into Ourselves and its Application to Pharmacogenomics" which was published in Bioinformatics and Biology Insights.

In this interview Dr Zhang discusses his research, collaborators, recently published articles and his views on open access publishing.

What is the primary focus of your research?

I am mostly interested in pharmacogenomics of anticancer drugs. We know that individuals may have different response to chemotherapeutic agents. Some respond well, but some may have serious side effects. Genetics is believed to play a critical role in drug response, which is likely to be a complex trait or phenotype. We, therefore, aim to identify genetic determinants that are responsible for drug response using cell-based,high throughput genome-wide approaches. Our gaol is personalized medicine through translational research.

What are the most exciting developments arising from current research in your area?

During the past few years, investigators have made significant progress in studying human genetic variation. Paricularly, the International HapMap Project provides a tremendous resource that has facilitated various studies including pharmcogenomic discovery. Currently, extensive genotypic (e.g., SNPs), Copy Number Variation and mRNA-level gene expression data are publicly available for the HapMap samples. Studies using the HapMap samples have begun to provide a lot of new insights into the natural variation of human beings. For example, our work as well as a couple of others' demonstrated significant gene expression differences between human populations. These results could potentially help explain the health-related differences between human populations (e.g., different drug response, different risks of common diseases).

Who are your main collaborators? Please describe your work with them.

I am affiliated with the Pharmaocogenetics of Anticancer Agents Research (PAAR) group based at the University of Chicago. The NIH-funded PAAR group is a member of the PGRN (Pharmacogenetics Research Network). My main collaborators include Dr. Mark Ratain (PAAR Chair), Dr. Eileen Dolan and Dr. Nancy Cox, who are Professors of Medicine at the University of Chicago.

What do you think about the development of open access publishing? Have you published in an open access journal? What motivated you to do so?

I strongly support open access publishing.I believe open access publishing can help authors reach as many readers as possible, therefore, it may increase the potential impact of the papers published.

What articles and/or books have you published recently?

Using the HapMap samples and our own Affymetrix exon array data, we published papers about population gene expression differences, genetic architecture of gene expression in humans, as well as gender differences in gene expression.

1. Zhang W, Duan S, Kistner EO, Bleibel WK, Huang RS, Clark TA, Chen TX, Schweitzer AC, Blume JE, Cox NJ and Dolan ME. Evaluation of genetic variation contributing to differences in gene expression between populations. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 2008; 82(3):631-640. PubMed ID: 18313023

2. Duan S, Huang RS, Zhang W, Bleibel WK, Roe CA, Clark TA, Chen TX, Schweitzer AC, Blume JE, Cox NJ and Dolan ME. Genetic architecture of transcript-level variation in humans. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 2008; 82(5):1101-1113. PubMed ID: 18439551

3. Zhang W, Huang RS, Duan S and Dolan ME. Gene set enrichment analyses revealed differences in gene expression patterns between males and females. In Silico Biology. 2009; 9(1): 0006.

More information about Dr Jiang:

• PAAR homepage

My thanks to Dr Zhang.

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