scRNA-seq Drug Repurposing Pipeline

Semi-supervised ML pipeline for drug candidate identification in cancer immunotherapy using single-cell RNA-seq data

Overview

At Huntsman Cancer Institute, I developed a comprehensive computational pipeline for identifying drug candidates targeting resistant tumor subpopulations in cancer immunotherapy.

Key Features

  • scDrug Integration: Applied scDrug to pre-treatment ESCC (Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma) scRNA-seq data to identify drug candidates
  • GDSC-based Predictions: Predicted cell-death percentages using Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) models for ICI combination strategies
  • Semi-supervised ML Pipeline: Built a pipeline to track treatment resistance using scRNA-seq data
  • Therapy Validation: Predicted and validated candidate therapies using iDEA, integrating DSigDB and DREIMT databases

Technologies Used

  • Languages: Python, R
  • ML Frameworks: Scikit-learn, PyTorch
  • Bioinformatics: Seurat, scDrug, iDEA
  • Databases: DSigDB, DREIMT, GDSC

Impact

This work contributed to a publication in Pharmaceuticals (2025) on harnessing single-cell RNA-seq for computational drug repurposing in cancer immunotherapy.