About
I am a faculty member at the University of California, Irvine. My main research interest is methodological development to address statistical challenges, especially when analyzing multivariate and high dimensional data collected in biological, medical, and behavioral studies
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Selected Publications
- Yang M, Tong L, Guo Z, Tan Z, Holmes TC, Yu Z, Xu X. Evaluating the potential of acupuncture for Alzheimer’s disease treatment: A meta-analysis and systematic review of mouse model studies. Translational Psychiatry. 2026 Mar 17.
- Mukamel EA, Yu Z. False positives in study of memory-related gene expression. Nature. 2025 Jun 5;642(8066):E1-3.
- Johnston KG, Berackey BT, Tran KM, Gelber A, Yu Z, MacGregor GR, Mukamel EA, Tan Z, Green KN, Xu X. Single-cell spatial transcriptomics reveals distinct patterns of dysregulation in non-neuronal and neuronal cells induced by the Trem2 R47H Alzheimer’s risk gene mutation. Molecular Psychiatry. 2025 Feb;30(2):461-77.
- Shen T, Du M, Johnston K, Grieco SF, Crary R, Guzowski JF, Lur G, Xu X, Ombao H, Guindani M, Yu Z. Time-Varying ℓ 0 Optimization for Spike Inference from Multi-Trial Calcium Recordings. Data science in science. 2024 Dec 31;3(1):2407770.
- D'Angelo L, Canale A, Yu Z, Guindani M. Bayesian nonparametric analysis for the detection of spikes in noisy calcium imaging data. Biometrics. 2023 Jun;79(2):1370-82.
- Feng J, Zhang L, Chen C, Sheng J, Ye Z, Feng K, Liu J, Cai Y, Zhu B, Yu Z, Chen C. A cognitive neurogenetic approach to uncovering the structure of executive functions. Nature communications. 2022 Aug 6;13(1):4588.
- Shen T, Lur G, Xu X, Yu Z. To deconvolve, or not to deconvolve: Inferences of neuronal activities using calcium imaging data. Journal of neuroscience methods. 2022 Jan 15;366:109431.
- Beyond t test and ANOVA: applications of mixed-effects models for more rigorous statistical analysis in neuroscience research
- Pluta D, Shen T, Xue G, Chen C, Ombao H, Yu Z. Ridge‐penalized adaptive Mantel test and its application in imaging genetics. Statistics in Medicine. 2021 Oct 30;40(24):5313-32.
- Yu Z, Demetriou M, Gillen DL. Genome‐wide analysis of gene‐gene and gene‐environment interactions using closed‐form Wald tests. Genetic epidemiology. 2015 Sep;39(6):446-55.
- Yu Z, Li CF, Mkhikian H, Zhou RW, Newton BL, Demetriou M. Family studies of type 1 diabetes reveal additive and epistatic effects between MGAT1 and three other polymorphisms. Genes & Immunity. 2014 Jun;15(4):218-23.
- Yu Z, Gillen D, Li CF, Demetriou M. Incorporating parental information into family-based association tests. Biostatistics. 2013 Jul 1;14(3):556-72.
- Shahbaba B, Shachaf CM, Yu Z. A pathway analysis method for genome‐wide association studies. Statistics in Medicine. 2012 May 10;31(10):988-1000.
- Yu Z. Family-based association tests using genotype data with uncertainty. Biostatistics. 2012 Apr 1;13(2):228-40.
- Mkhikian H, Grigorian A, Li CF, Chen HL, Newton B, Zhou RW, Beeton C, Torossian S, Tatarian GG, Lee SU, Lau K. Genetics and the environment converge to dysregulate N-glycosylation in multiple sclerosis. Nature communications. 2011 May 31;2(1):334.
- Browning BL, Yu Z. Simultaneous genotype calling and haplotype phasing improves genotype accuracy and reduces false-positive associations for genome-wide association studies. The American Journal of Human Genetics. 2009 Dec 11;85(6):847-61.