Fuchou Tang received his bachelor’s degree in 1998 and PhD in 2003 from School of Life Sciences, Peking University (PKU). From 2004 to 2010, he has been working as a postdoc in Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge (UK). He returned to China in 2010 and focused on studying early human germline development by single cell functional genomics approaches. Dr. Tang systematically developed the single-cell omics sequencing technologies and ushered the era of single-cell omics sequencing. His lab revealed a series of important epigenetic regulatory mechanisms of human germline cell development, and promotes the development of human germline epigenetics field, and deepened the understanding of human germline development biology. He has published over 70 papers as corresponding (or co-corresponding) authors in Cell (2013,2015,2020), Nature (2014,2016,2018,2019), Science (2016,2018), Nature Methods (2023), Cell Research (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023), National Science Review (2023), Cell Stem Cell (2014, 2017a,b,c, 2018, 2019),Nature Genetics (2018),Nature Cell Biology (2018a, b), Cancer Cell (2020),Cancer Discovery (2024), etc.

　　Germline cells are the cells critical for transmitting genomic information from generation to generation to keep a multicellular organism species immortal. Germline cells include totipotent zygotes & early cleavage stage embryos, pluripotent inner cell mass (ICM) & epiblasts (EPI), primordial germ cells (PGCs), fetal germ cells (FGCs), female germ cells during oogenesis, male germ cells during spermatogenesis, mature oocytes and mature sperm. During germline development, all of the epigenetic changes need to be reset back (reprogramming) at the next generation. So the epigenetic regulations in germline cells are most complex and most accurate in multicellular organisms. Dissecting the molecular mechanisms of germline development is important for understanding human development, and for its application of precision medicine in order to cure related human diseases. Our lab focuses on the epigenetic mechanisms of human germline development as well as tumorigenesis. Through this, we want to understand the epigenetic regulation of human germline development and the global epigenetic programming & reprogramming during this process. We use single-cell sequencing technologies (single-cell genome, transcriptome, DNA methylome, chromatin accessibility, 3D genome, as well as multi-omics sequencing technologies), genome editing, embryo micromanipulation, derivation and culture of organoids, directed differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to analyze the epigenetic basis of the gene regulation network during human germline development at single-cell and single-base resolution. These works may lead to better diagnosis and treatment of related infertility, sterility, and tumors.

Selected Pubblications

1. Liu Z, Hu Y, Xie H, Chen K, Wen L, Fu W, Zhou X*, Tang Fuchou*. (2024). Single-cell chromatin accessibility analysis reveals the epigenetic basis and signature transcription factors for the molecular subtypes of colorectal cancers. Cancer Discovery. 14: 1082-1105
2. Li W, Lu J, Lu P, Gao Y, Bai Y, Chen K, Su X, Li M, Liu J, Chen Y, Wen L, Tang Fuchou*. (2023). scNanoHi-C: a single-cell long-read concatemer sequencing method to reveal high-order chromatin structures within individual cells. Nature Methods. 20: 1493-1505
3. Lin J, Xue X, Wang Y, Zhou Y, Wu J, Xie H, Liu M, Wen L, Tang Fuchou*. (2023). scNanoCOOL-seq: a long-read single-cell sequencing method for multi-omics profiling within individual cells. Cell Research. 33: 879-882
4. Zhou Y, Bian S, Zhou X, ..., Fu W*, Tang Fuchou*. (2020). Single-Cell Multiomics Sequencing Reveals Prevalent Genomic Alterations in Tumor Stromal Cells of Human Colorectal Cancer. Cancer Cell. 38(6):818-828.e5
5. Zhou F, Wang R, Yuan P, Ren Y, Mao Y, Li R, Lian Y, Li J, Wen L, Yan L, Qiao J*, Tang Fuchou*. (2019) Reconstituting the transcriptome and DNA methylome landscapes of human implantation. Nature. 572: 660-664
6. Zhu P, Guo H, Ren Y, ..., Wen L, Yan L*, Qiao J*, Tang Fuchou*. (2018) Single-cell DNA methylome sequencing of human preimplantation embryos. Nature Genetics. 50: 12-19