Weidong Wu

Columbus, Ohio, USA

Weidong.wu [at] osumc.edu

I am a PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at The Ohio State University, advised by Qin Ma and Anjun Ma. My work sits between computational biology and machine learning: I build and apply methods for single-cell and multi-omics data to understand how cells behave in disease.

Recent projects span a cross-species single-cell atlas of polycystic kidney disease, T cell exhaustion in tumors, and antiviral innate immunity. I am generally interested in representation learning for biological sequences and cells, cross-species and cross-model comparison, and making computational tools that other biologists can actually use.

Before Ohio State I received an M.S. in Biology and Medicine and a B.S. in Software Engineering, both from Zhengzhou University, where I worked on epigenomic analysis of gastric intestinal metaplasia and on de novo design of DNA-binding proteins.

Feel free to reach out if you would like to talk about single-cell methods, kidney or immune data, or possible collaborations.

news

Jul 28, 2026	Our cross-model single-cell atlas of polycystic kidney disease is now online at JCI Insight.
Oct 01, 2025	Our study on the proteotoxic stress response in T cell exhaustion is published in Nature.
Aug 19, 2025	Paper on the dual antiviral roles of O-GlcNAc transferase is out in Nature Communications.
May 20, 2025	Our meta-analysis on the heterogeneity and efficacy of cancer immunotherapy appears in Biological Procedures Online.

selected publications

JCI Insight

A cross model single-cell atlas reveals conserved involvement of osteopontin in polycystic kidney disease

Sarah J. Miller, Hua Zhong, Weidong Wu, Audrey M. Cordova, Morgan E. Yashchenko, and 23 more authors

JCI Insight, Jul 2026

DOI Bib HTML

@article{miller2026osteopontin,
  title = {A cross model single-cell atlas reveals conserved involvement of osteopontin in polycystic kidney disease},
  author = {Miller, Sarah J. and Zhong, Hua and Wu, Weidong and Cordova, Audrey M. and Yashchenko, Morgan E. and Yashchenko, Alex and Li, Zhang and Jafree, Daniyal J. and Zimmerman, Chelsea N. and DeVette, Christa I. and Do, Vicki and Hignite, Maya E. and Park, Yohan and Nusrat, Fariha and Maryam, Bibi and Lu, Sizhao and Li, Xiaoyan and Gipson, Jenny R. and Li, Xiaogang and Long, David A. and Weiser-Evans, Mary C. M. and Yoder, Bradley K. and Cowley, Benjamin D. and Hopp, Katharina and Stubbs, Jason R. and Ma, Qin and Ma, Anjun and Zimmerman, Kurt A.},
  journal = {JCI Insight},
  year = {2026},
  month = jul,
  doi = {10.1172/jci.insight.207157},
  publisher = {American Society for Clinical Investigation}
}

Nature

Proteotoxic stress response drives T cell exhaustion and immune evasion

Yi Wang, Anjun Ma, No-Joon Song, Ariana E. Shannon, Yaa S. Amankwah, and 20 more authors

Nature, Oct 2025

DOI Bib HTML

@article{wang2025proteotoxic,
  title = {Proteotoxic stress response drives T cell exhaustion and immune evasion},
  author = {Wang, Yi and Ma, Anjun and Song, No-Joon and Shannon, Ariana E. and Amankwah, Yaa S. and Chen, Xingyu and Wu, Weidong and Wang, Ziyu and Saadey, Abbey A. and Yousif, Amir and Ghosh, Gautam and Mandula, Jay K. and Velegraki, Maria and Xiao, Tong and Wen, Haitao and Huang, Stanley Ching-Cheng and Wang, Ruoning and Beusch, Christian M. and Dawood, Abdelhameed S. and Gordon, David E. and Abdel-Hakeem, Mohamed S. and Ghoneim, Hazem E. and Xin, Gang and Searle, Brian C. and Li, Zihai},
  journal = {Nature},
  volume = {647},
  number = {8091},
  pages = {1025--1035},
  year = {2025},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1038/s41586-025-09539-1},
  publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}
}

Nat Commun

O-GlcNAc transferase plays dual antiviral roles by integrating innate immunity and lipid metabolism

Hong Dong, Chenxi Liang, Junjie Zhang, Weidong Wu, Nitesh Kumar, and 16 more authors

Nature Communications, Aug 2025

DOI Bib HTML

@article{dong2025oglcnac,
  title = {O-GlcNAc transferase plays dual antiviral roles by integrating innate immunity and lipid metabolism},
  author = {Dong, Hong and Liang, Chenxi and Zhang, Junjie and Wu, Weidong and Kumar, Nitesh and Liu, Zihao and Sun, Yajun and Liao, Zhiwei and Cheng, Xiaolin and Yu, Yanbao and Zhang, Yong and Holtzman, Michael J. and Li, Jianrong and Gowdy, Kymberly M. and Thomas, Paul G. and Badjic, Jovica D. and Ma, Anjun and Ma, Qin and Yount, Jacob S. and Liu, Shan-Lu and Wen, Haitao},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  volume = {16},
  number = {1},
  year = {2025},
  month = aug,
  doi = {10.1038/s41467-025-63085-y},
  publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}
}

BPO

Heterogeneity and efficacy of immunotherapy in multiple cancer: insights from a meta-analysis

Weidong Wu, Bin Liu, Qing Zhang, Xiaojuan Zhang, Pengya Feng, and 2 more authors

Biological Procedures OnlineCo-first author , May 2025

DOI Bib HTML

@article{wu2025immunotherapy,
  title = {Heterogeneity and efficacy of immunotherapy in multiple cancer: insights from a meta-analysis},
  author = {Wu, Weidong and Liu, Bin and Zhang, Qing and Zhang, Xiaojuan and Feng, Pengya and Jia, Yongliang and Xue, Xia},
  journal = {Biological Procedures Online},
  volume = {27},
  number = {1},
  year = {2025},
  month = may,
  doi = {10.1186/s12575-025-00274-5},
  publisher = {BioMed Central}
}