Dr. Kai Tan

Biography

Kai Tan, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, with a focus on Oncology. His research expertise centers on gene regulation, particularly in cellular development and cancer. His laboratory employs genomics and systems biology approaches to understand key regulatory factors that influence cellular processes. Key projects include generating bulk and single-cell multi-omic atlases of pediatric cancer, identifying novel combination therapies, and unraveling gene regulatory networks involved in hematopoietic stem cell differentiation and T-cell development. Tan’s work aims to develop computational methods for interpreting high-dimensional data, as well as utilizing innovative techniques such as RNA-Seq and Hi-C to create large data sources for modeling gene regulatory architectures. He is dedicated to understanding the molecular basis of therapeutic resistance in cancer and is actively involved in developing network-based approaches for identifying critical regulatory nodes for novel therapeutic candidates.

Research Interests

Experience