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Yosuke Tanigawa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA.

Yosuke works at the intersection of statistical genetics and computational biology. Specifically, he develops computational and statistical methods to dissect disease heterogeneity and apply them in systematic analyses of large-scale phenotypic, genetic, epigenomic, functional genomic, and single-cell genomic datasets.

Before joining UCLA, Yosuke received postdoctoral training at MIT Computational Biology Lab (PI: Dr. Manolis Kellis) and completed his doctoral training at Stanford University (Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics), working with Dr. Manuel Rivas and Dr. Gill Bejerano.

Please check his CV, the Publications page, and his Google Scholar profile. He also maintains the Resources page, where you may browse datasets, analysis and visualization scripts, and web applications from his research activities.

Research interests

I work in the following three research areas.

• Disease heterogeneity dissection through development of statistical and computational methods
  • Decomposition of Genetic Associations: Tanigawa*, Li*, et al., Nat Commun. (2019).
  • Ontology-guided stratified enrichment of transcription factor binding sites: Tanigawa*, Dyer*, Bejerano, PLoS Comput Biol (2022).
• Polygenic scores methodology and applications.
  • Multi-ancestry: Tanigawa and Kellis, Am J Hum Genet. (2023)
  • Multi-trait: Sinnott-Armstrong*, Tanigawa*, et al., Nat Genet. (2021).
• Therapeutic target discovery using human genetics.
  • ANGPTL7, intraocular pressure, and glaucoma: Tanigawa, et al., PLoS Genet. (2020).
  • Blood and urine biomarkers: Sinnott-Armstrong*, Tanigawa*, et al., Nat Genet. (2021).

Research overview

The video above is from the CSAIL Computational Biology Lab Tour in 2024, a research overview tailored for the industry audience.

Upcoming presentations

• 2025/9: Yosuke will present at the Cell Symposia: Precision genomics for human health
• 2025/10: Yosuke will present at at the American Society of Human Genetics 2025 Annual Meeting.

News

• 2025/9/4: New Publication. Liu*, Zhang* et al. “Single-cell multiregion epigenomic rewiring in Alzheimer’s disease progression and cognitive resilience.”
• 2025/8/16: New Preprint. Zheng et al. “Disparities and trends in global representation of human genetics conferences: a 26-year longitudinal study of ASHG and ESHG.” In this study, led by Hao Zheng, we inferred the demography of presenting authors at major genetic conferences and investigated their longitudinal trends across 26 years.
• 2025/7/1: Yosuke joined UCLA as an Assistant Professor in Bioengineering. My research group will address heterogeneity in disease from computational and statistical perspectives. We will explore the mechanistic basis of interindividual differences in disease onset, progression, and treatment response. There is so much we can do to deliver more relevant prevention and treatment.
• 2025/5/7: New Preprint. Victor*, Sun* et al. “Cellular and Regional Vulnerability Shapes the Molecular Landscape of Psychosis in Alzheimers Disease.” In this study jointly led by Matt Victor and Na Sun, we systematically dissect the molecular basis of psychosis in Alzheimer’s disease at single-cell resolution, revealing cellular and regional vulnerabilities associated with psychosis.
• 2024/3/27: Yosuke presented at the Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University.
• 2025/3/18: New Preprint. Hou et al. “Genotype-Epigenome-Phenotype Integration Reveals the Contributions of Peripheral Immune Cells to Bipolar Disorder Pathogenesis, Phenotypic Heterogeneity, and Therapy.” In this study led by Lei Hou, we report systematic integration of epigenomics data in bipolar disorders.
• 2024/3/6: Yosuke received the Best Life Science Pitch Award by the Brave Global Program by Beyond Next Ventures Inc.
• 2024/2/27: Yosuke presented at the Department of Bioengineering, Henry Samueli School of Engineering, the University of California, Los Angeles.
• 2025/2/3: New Preprint. Justesen et al. “Genetics of cardiometabolic disease progression.” The colleagues in the Rivas Lab investigate the genetic basis of cardiometabolic disease progression in the UK Biobank. The study shows that the genetic basis of disease progression provides opportunities to stratify individuals, offering substantial implications for guiding treatment decisions.
• 2024/1/31: Yosuke presented at the systems genetics & genomics seminar, Boston University.
• 2024/1/23: Yosuke presented at the Prosserman Centre for Population Health Research, the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute of Sinai Health.
• 2024/1/16: Yosuke presented at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
• 2024/1/6: Yosuke presented at the Department of Biological Sciences, School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the University of Texas at Dallas.
• 2025/1/1: Happy New Year!
• cf. News Archive

Blog posts

I write blog posts mostly on computing tips, including:

• GWAS and genetic analyses with PLINK2 and pgenlibr
• Notes on Apache Columnar format
• Working with very small values in R
• Commonly used commands in high-performance cluster computing with Slurm workload manager
• Links to useful resources

Contact

Email is the best way to reach me. If you do not get a reply within two days, please do not hesitate to follow up. Thank you very much for your interest in our work.

• Email: yosuke <dot> tanigawa [at] alumni <dot> stanford <dot> edu
• Social media accounts can be found on the left (for PC) or the “Follow” button at the top (for smartphone).