Honghuang Lin, PhD
Adjunct Associate Professor, Medicine
Biography
I am a bioinformatician/biostatistician with training in mathematics, machine learning, genetics, and digital medicine. Our lab is mainly focused on the development and application of computational tools to study complex diseases.
1. Identification of genetic causes of complex diseases. We have been involved in multiple large-scale genetic consortiums, such as the Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) Consortium, Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program, and Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP). These studies have identified hundreds of genetic loci associated with atrial fibrillation, heart failure, hypertension, and Alzheimer’s disease.
2. Integration of multi-omics data to understand disease molecular mechanisms. Complex diseases are usually caused by the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. We have identified numerous molecular signatures from gene expression, protein expression, and DNA methylation that are related to aging and cardiovascular disease. We are also developing computational methods to integrate different molecular signatures and build gene interaction networks to study potential disease regulation networks.
3. Development of machine learning models for early disease diagnosis. We have built multiple machine learning models to predict dementia risk from midlife risk factors and neuropsychological tests. In combination with neuroimaging and blood-based measures, we are also developing multimodal machine learning methods to identify new biomarkers that are predictive of future cognitive impairment.
4. Exploration of digital and wearable devices for health monitoring. We have deployed thousands of wearable devices and mobile apps to monitor cardiovascular health and cognitive health. We are integrating active engagement with passive engagement technologies from the habitual environment to make sustained monitoring feasible. Novel analytic strategies are also being developed to analyze big unstructured data to identify potential digital biomarkers that are predictive of future health outcomes.
Other Positions
- Member, BU-BMC Cancer Center, Boston University
- Investigator, Framingham Heart Study
- Member, Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research, Boston University
Education
- National University of Singapore (NUS), PhD
- Peking University, BA
- Peking University, BS
Publications
- Published on 4/1/2025
Ding H, Lyu C, Karjadi C, Sunderaraman P, Young CB, Mormino EC, Low S, Devine S, Gifford K, Au R, Lin H. Association of the digital clock drawing test with amyloid and tau PET biomarkers in low age risk adults. Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 01; 15(1):11104. PMID: 40169870.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 3/14/2025
Wang D, Scalici A, Wang Y, Lin H, Pitsillides A, Heard-Costa N, Cruchaga C, Ziegemeier E, Bis JC, Fornage M, Boerwinkle E, De Jager PL, Wijsman E, Dupuis J, Renton AE, Seshadri S, Goate AM, DeStefano AL, Peloso GM. Frequency of variants in Mendelian Alzheimer's disease genes within the Alzheimer's Disease Sequencing Project. J Alzheimers Dis. 2025 Mar 14; 13872877251320375. PMID: 40084664.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 3/12/2025
Doerr AJ, Orwig TA, McNulty M, Sison SDM, Paquette DR, Leung R, Ding H, Erban SB, Weinstein BR, Guilarte-Walker Y, Zai AH, Walkey AJ, Soni A, McManus DD, Lin H. Digital Assessment of Cognitive Health in Outpatient Primary Care: Usability Study. JMIR Form Res. 2025 Mar 12; 9:e66695. PMID: 40073397.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 3/6/2025
Roselli C, Surakka I, Olesen MS, Sveinbjornsson G, Marston NA, Choi SH, Holm H, Chaffin M, Gudbjartsson D, Hill MC, Aegisdottir H, Albert CM, Alonso A, Anderson CD, Arking DE, Arnar DO, Barnard J, Benjamin EJ, Braunwald E, Brumpton B, Campbell A, Chami N, Chasman DI, Cho K, Choi EK, Christophersen IE, Chung MK, Conen D, Crijns HJ, Cutler MJ, Czuba T, Damrauer SM, Dichgans M, Dörr M, Dudink E, Duong T, Erikstrup C, Esko T, Fatkin D, Faul JD, Ferreira M, Freitag DF, Ganesh SK, Gaziano JM, Geelhoed B, Ghouse J, Gieger C, Giulianini F, Graham SE, Gudnason V, Guo X, Haggerty C, Hayward C, Heckbert SR, Hveem K, Ito K, Johnson R, Jukema JW, Jurgens SJ, Kääb S, Kane JP, Kany S, Kardia SLR, Kavousi M, Khurshid S, Kamanu FK, Kirchhof P, Kleber ME, Knight S, Komuro I, Krieger JE, Launer LJ, Li D, Lin H, Lin HJ, Loos RJF, Lotta L, Lubitz SA, Lunetta KL, Macfarlane PW, Magnusson PKE, Malik R, Mantineo H, Marcus GM, März W, McManus DD, Melander O, Melloni GEM, Meyre PB, Miyazawa K, Mohanty S, Monfort LM, Müller-Nurasyid M, Nafissi NA, Natale A, Nazarian S, Ostrowski SR, Pak HN, Pang S, Pedersen OB, Pedersen NL, Pereira AC, Pirruccello JP, Preuss M, Psaty BM, Pullinger CR, Rader DJ, Rämö JT, Ridker PM, Rienstra M, Risch L, Roden DM, Rotter JI, Sabatine MS, Schunkert H, Shah SH, Shim J, Shoemaker MB, Simonson B, Sinner MF, Smit RAJ, Smith JA, Smith NL, Smith JG, Soliman EZ, Sørensen E, Sotoodehnia N, Strbian D, Stricker BH, Teder-Laving M, Sun YV, Thériault S, Thorolfsdottir RB, Thorsteinsdottir U, Tveit A, van der Harst P, van Meurs J, Wang B, Weiss S, Wells QS, Weng LC, Wilson PW, Xiao L, Yang PS, Yao J, Yoneda ZT, Zeller T, Zeng L, Zhao W, Zhou X, Zöllner S, Ruff CT, Bundgaard H, Willer C, Stefansson K, Ellinor PT. Meta-analysis of genome-wide associations and polygenic risk prediction for atrial fibrillation in more than 180,000 cases. Nat Genet. 2025 Mar; 57(3):539-547. PMID: 40050429.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 3/4/2025
Henry A, Mo X, Finan C, Chaffin MD, Speed D, Issa H, Denaxas S, Ware JS, Zheng SL, Malarstig A, Gratton J, Bond I, Roselli C, Miller D, Chopade S, Schmidt AF, Abner E, Adams L, Andersson C, Aragam KG, Ärnlöv J, Asselin G, Raja AA, Backman JD, Bartz TM, Biddinger KJ, Biggs ML, Bloom HL, Boersma E, Brandimarto J, Brown MR, Brunak S, Bruun MT, Buckbinder L, Bundgaard H, Carey DJ, Chasman DI, Chen X, Cook JP, Czuba T, de Denus S, Dehghan A, Delgado GE, Doney AS, Dörr M, Dowsett J, Dudley SC, Engström G, Erikstrup C, Esko T, Farber-Eger EH, Felix SB, Finer S, Ford I, Ghanbari M, Ghasemi S, Ghouse J, Giedraitis V, Giulianini F, Gottdiener JS, Gross S, Guðbjartsson DF, Gui H, Gutmann R, Hägg S, Haggerty CM, Hedman ÅK, Helgadottir A, Hemingway H, Hillege H, Hyde CL, Aagaard Jensen B, Jukema JW, Kardys I, Karra R, Kavousi M, Kizer JR, Kleber ME, Køber L, Koekemoer A, Kuchenbaecker K, Lai YP, Lanfear D, Langenberg C, Lin H, Lind L, Lindgren CM, Liu PP, London B, Lowery BD, Luan J, Lubitz SA, Magnusson P, Margulies KB, Marston NA, Martin H, März W, Melander O, Mordi IR, Morley MP, Morris AP, Morrison AC, Morton L, Nagle MW, Nelson CP, Niessner A, Niiranen T, Noordam R, Nowak C, O'Donoghue ML, Ostrowski SR, Owens AT, Palmer CNA, Paré G, Pedersen OB, Perola M, Pigeyre M, Psaty BM, Rice KM, Ridker PM, Romaine SPR, Rotter JI, Ruff CT, Sabatine MS, Sallah N, Salomaa V, Sattar N, Shalaby AA, Shekhar A, Smelser DT, Smith NL, Sørensen E, Srinivasan S, Stefansson K, Sveinbjörnsson G, Svensson P, Tammesoo ML, Tardif JC, Teder-Laving M, Teumer A, Thorgeirsson G, Thorsteinsdottir U, Torp-Pedersen C, Tragante V, Trompet S, Uitterlinden AG, Ullum H, van der Harst P, van Heel D, van Setten J, van Vugt M, Veluchamy A, Verschuuren M, Verweij N, Vissing CR, Völker U, Voors AA, Wallentin L, Wang Y, Weeke PE, Wiggins KL, Williams LK, Yang Y, Yu B, Zannad F, Zheng C, Asselbergs FW, Cappola TP, Dubé MP, Dunn ME, Lang CC, Samani NJ, Shah S, Vasan RS, Smith JG, Holm H, Shah S, Ellinor PT, Hingorani AD, Wells Q, Lumbers RT. Genome-wide association study meta-analysis provides insights into the etiology of heart failure and its subtypes. Nat Genet. 2025 Apr; 57(4):815-828. PMID: 40038546.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 3/1/2025
Ding H, Ye Z, Paschalidis A, Bennett DA, Au R, Lin H. Dynamic lifetime risk prediction of Alzheimer's disease with longitudinal cognitive assessment measurements. Alzheimers Dement. 2025 Mar; 21(3):e70055. PMID: 40042504.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 2/21/2025
Wang B, Chibnik LB, Choi SH, Blacker D, DeStefano AL, Lin H. Association of genetic risk of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive function in two European populations. Sci Rep. 2025 Feb 21; 15(1):6410. PMID: 39984543.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 2/21/2025
Orchard P, Blackwell TW, Kachuri L, Castaldi PJ, Cho MH, Christenson SA, Durda P, Gabriel S, Hersh CP, Huntsman S, Hwang S, Joehanes R, Johnson M, Li X, Lin H, Liu CT, Liu Y, Mak ACY, Manichaikul AW, Paik D, Saferali A, Smith JD, Taylor KD, Tracy RP, Wang J, Wang M, Weinstock JS, Weiss J, Wheeler HE, Zhou Y, Zoellner S, Wu JC, Mestroni L, Graw S, Taylor MRG, Ortega VE, Johnson CW, Gan W, Abecasis G, Nickerson DA, Gupta N, Ardlie K, Woodruff PG, Zheng Y, Bowler RP, Meyers DA, Reiner A, Kooperberg C, Ziv E, Ramachandran VS, Larson MG, Cupples LA, Burchard EG, Silverman EK, Rich SS, Heard-Costa N, Tang H, Rotter JI, Smith AV, Levy D, Aguet F, Scott L, Raffield LM, Parker SCJ. Cross-cohort analysis of expression and splicing quantitative trait loci in TOPMed. medRxiv. 2025 Feb 21. PMID: 40034763.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 2/12/2025
Spartano NL, Prescott B, Walker ME, Shi E, Venkatesan G, Fei D, Lin H, Murabito JM, Ahn D, Battelino T, Edelman SV, Fleming GA, Freckmann G, Galindo RJ, Joubert M, Lansang MC, Mader JK, Mankovsky B, Mathioudakis NN, Mohan V, Peters AL, Shah VN, Spanakis EK, Waki K, Wright EE, Zilbermint M, Wolpert HA, Steenkamp DW. Expert Clinical Interpretation of Continuous Glucose Monitor Reports From Individuals Without Diabetes. J Diabetes Sci Technol. 2025 Feb 12; 19322968251315171. PMID: 39936548.
Read at: PubMed - Published on 2/7/2025
Li X, Chen H, Selvaraj MS, Van Buren E, Zhou H, Wang Y, Sun R, McCaw ZR, Yu Z, Jiang MZ, DiCorpo D, Gaynor SM, Dey R, Arnett DK, Benjamin EJ, Bis JC, Blangero J, Boerwinkle E, Bowden DW, Brody JA, Cade BE, Carson AP, Carlson JC, Chami N, Chen YI, Curran JE, de Vries PS, Fornage M, Franceschini N, Freedman BI, Gu C, Heard-Costa NL, He J, Hou L, Hung YJ, Irvin MR, Kaplan RC, Kardia SLR, Kelly TN, Konigsberg I, Kooperberg C, Kral BG, Li C, Li Y, Lin H, Liu CT, Loos RJF, Mahaney MC, Martin LW, Mathias RA, Mitchell BD, Montasser ME, Morrison AC, Naseri T, North KE, Palmer ND, Peyser PA, Psaty BM, Redline S, Reiner AP, Rich SS, Sitlani CM, Smith JA, Taylor KD, Tiwari HK, Vasan RS, Viali S, Wang Z, Wessel J, Yanek LR, Yu B, Dupuis J, Meigs JB, Auer PL, Raffield LM, Manning AK, Rice KM, Rotter JI, Peloso GM, Natarajan P, Li Z, Liu Z, Lin X. A statistical framework for multi-trait rare variant analysis in large-scale whole-genome sequencing studies. Nat Comput Sci. 2025 Feb; 5(2):125-143. PMID: 39920506.
Read at: PubMed
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