Dr. Ye is passionate about developing and applying novel statistical methods for high-dimension and high-throughput data to cancer etiology and pharmacogenetics. His research focuses on adapting cutting-edge statistical methods to genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and next generation sequencing (NGS) studies, to the study of high-order interactions in cancer development and progression, as well as for the analysis of chromosomal aberrations such as LOH.

In his current project, "Next generation sequencing to identify novel colorectal cancer genes," Dr. Ye and his co-PI, Dr. Chad Huff, will collaborate with experts in the field of cancer genetics to identify novel rare variants for colorectal cancer (CRC) risk with intermediate effect size using a multistage design. The novel gene-based approach for NGS data analysis used in this study provides a powerful and prominent test for CRC-gene association, while greatly reducing multiple testing issues. The results of this project may help physicians identify individuals at high-risk of CRC for intensive surveillance or targeted intervention, which would have important implications for clinical care.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has a strong genetic component, and many genetic factors for CRC risk have been identified through traditional linkage studies and genome-wide association studies. However, a large portion of CRC heritability is still unexplained, and rare variants for CRC risk exhibiting intermediate effect sizes remain largely unknown and unexplored. Therefore, CRC provides an excellent test case for the rare variant hypothesis, which states that inherited human diseases come about due to multiple rare variants in many genes with intermediate effect sizes.