Appointment(s)
Director, Precision Medicine Translational Research Program, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
Professor of Biochemistry and Precision Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore
Toh Chin Chye Visiting Professor in Molecular Biology and Medicine, Professor of Biochemistry and Medicine, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University Singapore
Founder and Chairman, Provaxus Inc.
Degree(s)
Stanford University and Stanford Genome Technology Center, Palto Alto, CA (Postdoc) Biochemistry & Genomics (Ron W. Davis), (2000)
Stanford University, Stanford, CA Ph.D. Developmental Biology (David S. Hogness), (1998)
Yale University, New Haven B.S./M.S. Biology, (1993)
Biography
Prof. White has worked at the interface of technology development and application to biological problems for over 20 years. The teams that he leads are committed to using genomic and computation/analytics tools, and an iterative experimental systems biology approach, to distill explanatory or predictive models from the complexity of multi-genic and epigenetic processes that underlie development, evolution and disease.
Over the years Prof White’s laboratory has developed and used experimental and computational genomics and systems biology toolkits to delineate the basic architecture of transcriptional genomic systems in the development of model systems, to uncover basic principles of gene regulatory evolution in model organisms and humans, to identify conserved oncogenes and tumor suppressors, and to shed light on the transcriptional networks that go awry in cancers and discover novel drug targets in those same cancers as a result. Prof White’s lab has also contributed significantly to the mapping and functional characterization of the human genome in general through the NIH Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, and to mapping the genomic architecture of the human brain in neuropsychiatric disorders through the NIH PsychENCODE project, including the systematic identification and characterization of non-coding regions of the human genome predicted to be enhancers that contribute to the development of neuropsychiatric diseases.
In the last few years Prof. White’s team has also developed tools and systems for managing and mining massive genomic datasets. They have thus discovered and characterized in model cell systems dozens of novel recurrent fusion genes in human cancers, identified previously unrecognized risk factors for human diseases including cancers, and they have developed predictive algorithms that match specific cancer patients to specific treatments. Prof White is also actively engaged in commercialization of genomic and systems biology approaches for developing novel diagnostics and therapeutics. He has had founder and executive roles at companies such as Tempus Labs, HealthSeq Asia, and Provaxus.
Research Areas/Research Interest
Prof. White has worked at the interface of technology development and application to biological problems for over 20 years. The teams that he leads are committed to using genomic and computation/analytics tools, and an iterative experimental systems biology approach, to distill explanatory or predictive models from the complexity of multi-genic and epigenetic processes that underlie development, evolution and disease. Over the years Prof White’s laboratory has developed and used experimental and computational genomics and systems biology toolkits to delineate the basic architecture of transcriptional genomic systems in the development of model systems, to uncover basic principles of gene regulatory evolution in model organisms and humans, to identify conserved oncogenes and tumor suppressors, and to shed light on the transcriptional networks that go awry in cancers and discover novel drug targets in those same cancers as a result. Prof White’s lab has also contributed significantly to the mapping and functional characterization of the human genome in general through the NIH Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project, and to mapping the genomic architecture of the human brain in neuropsychiatric disorders through the NIH PsychENCODE project, including the systematic identification and characterization of non-coding regions of the human genome predicted to be enhancers that contribute to the development of neuropsychiatric diseases. In the last few years Prof. White’s team has also developed tools and systems for managing and mining massive genomic datasets. They have thus discovered and characterized in model cell systems dozens of novel recurrent fusion genes in human cancers, identified previously unrecognized risk factors for human diseases including cancers, and they have developed predictive algorithms that match specific cancer patients to specific treatments. Prof White is also actively engaged in commercialization of genomic and systems biology approaches for developing novel diagnostics and therapeutics. He has had founder and executive roles at companies such as Tempus Labs, HealthSeq Asia, and Provaxus.
Analysis of Drosophila Segmentation Network Identifies a JNK Pathway Factor Overexpressed in Kidney Cancer. Science, 323:1218-22, 2009. PMC2756524.
Liu J, Ghanim M, Xue L, Brown CD, Iossifov I, Angeletti C, Hua S, Nègre N, Ludwig M, Stricker T, Al-Ahmadie HA, Tretiakova M, Camp RL, Perera-Alberto M, Rimm DL, Xu T, Rzhetsky A, White KP.
Genomic Antagonism between Retinoic Acid and Estrogen Signaling in Breast Cancer. Cell. 137:1259-71, 2009.
Hua SJ, Kittler R, and White KP.
A cis-regulatory map for the Drosophila genome. Mar 24; 471:527-31. 2011.
Nègre N*, Brown CD*, Ma L*, Bristow CA*, Miller S*, Kheradpour P, Loriaux P, Sealfon R, Li Z, Ishii H, Spokony R, Chen J, Hwang L, Wagner U, Auburn R, Shah PK, Morrison CA, Zieba J, Suchy S, Senderowicz L, Bild NA, Grundstad AJ, Hanley D, Mannervik M, Venken K, Bellen H, White R, Russell S, Grossman RL, Ren B, Posakony JW, Kellis M, White KP.
An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome. ENCODE Project Consortium. Nature. 489:57-74. 2012. PMC3439153.
A comprehensive nuclear receptor network for breast cancer cells. Cell Rep. 3:538-51. 2013.
Kittler R, Zhou J, Hua S, Ma L, Liu Y, Pendleton E, Cheng C, Gerstein M, White KP.
Comprehensive functional genomic resource and integrative model for the human brain. Science. 2018 Dec 14;362(6420).
Wang D, Liu S, Warrell J, Won H, Shi X, Navarro FCP, Clarke D, Gu M, Emani P, Yang YT, Xu M, Gandal MJ, Lou S, Zhang J, Park JJ, Yan C, Rhie SK, Manakongtreecheep K, Zhou H, Nathan A, Peters M, Mattei E, Fitzgerald D, Brunetti T, Moore J, Jiang Y, Girdhar K, Hoffman GE, Kalayci S, Gümüş ZH, Crawford GE; PsychENCODE Consortium, Roussos P, Akbarian S, Jaffe AE, White KP, Weng Z, Sestan N, Geschwind DH, Knowles JA, Gerstein MB.
Clinical validation of the Tempus xT next-generation targeted oncology sequencing assay. Oncotarget. 2019 Mar 22;10(24):2384-2396
Beaubier N, Tell R, Lau D, Parsons JR, Bush S, Perera J, Sorrells S, Baker T, Chang A, Michuda J, Iguartua C, MacNeil S, Shah K, Ellis P, Yeatts K, Mahon B, Taxter T, Bontrager M, Khan A, Huether R, Lefkofsky E, White KP. Oncotarget.
Integrated Genomic Profiling Expands Options for Cancer Patients. Nature Biotech. 2019 Nov;37(11):1351-1360.
Nike Beaubier*, Martin Bontrager*, Robert Huether*, Catherine Igartua*, Denise Lau*, Kaanan P. Shah*, Timothy Taxter*, Robert Tell*, Alexandria M. Bobe, Stephen Bush, Alan L. Chang, Derick C. Hoskinson, Aly A. Khan, Emily Kudalkar, Benjamin D. Leibowitz, Ariane Lozachmeur, Jackson Michuda, Jerod Parsons, Jason F. Perera, Ameen Salahudeen, Wei Zhu, and Kevin P. White.
Expanded encyclopaedias of DNA elements in the human and mouse genomes. ENCODE Project Consortium. Nature. 2020 Jul;583(7818):699-710.
An integrative ENCODE resource for cancer genomics. Nat Commun. 2020 Jul 29;11(1):3696.
Zhang J, Lee D, Dhiman V, Jiang P, Xu J, McGillivray P, Yang H, Liu J, Meyerson W, Clarke D, Gu M, Li S, Lou S, Xu J, Lochovsky L, Ung M, Ma L, Yu S, Cao Q, Harmanci A, Yan KK, Sethi A, Gürsoy G, Schoenberg MR, Rozowsky J, Warrell J, Emani P, Yang YT, Galeev T, Kong X, Liu S, Li X, Krishnan J, Feng Y, Rivera-Mulia JC, Adrian J, Broach JR, Bolt M, Moran J, Fitzgerald D, Dileep V, Liu T, Mei S, Sasaki T, Trevilla-Garcia C, Wang S, Wang Y, Zang C, Wang D, Klein RJ, Snyder M, Gilbert DM, Yip K, Cheng C, Yue F, Liu XS, White KP, Gerstein M.
