The ultimate goal of biomedical research is to understand human physiopathology, so that we can better diagnose, treat, and prevent diseases. Compared with the bottom-up research approach that infers overall disease manifestations from the molecular and cellular levels, the top-down strategy starts from clinical phenomena and progressively analyzes disease mechanisms from the macroscopic to the microscopic level. This approach is particularly well-suited for studying complex diseases.

However, due to technical limitations, current top-down disease research often struggles to link macroscopic or histopathological phenotypes to the specific cell populations that play critical roles. Even when key cell populations are identified, driving mechanism study down to the molecular level remains challenging.

Our research aims to overcome these technological bottlenecks and build feasible top-down research strategies. Through the integration of a breadth of technologies, including sequencing, mass spectrometry, imaging and bioinformatics, we would bring the precision tradition from chemistry to genetics and biochemistry, hoping to make pathological discoveries that were previously unreachable.