Events

Stats-Up-AI-Alliance Webinars

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  Friday, April 10, 2026

  2:00 pm Central Time online

  Building Digital Tissue Twins: Uniting Spatial Omics with Histopathology

  The American Statistical Association's Stats-Up-AI-Alliance is pleased to present Dr. Mingyao Li, professor of biostatistics and digital pathology at the University of Pennsylvania, as the thirteenth speaker in its webinar series (co-organized by assistant professor Panpan Zhang). Dr. Li will present AI-driven approaches that integrate spatial omics with histopathology to enhance resolution, scale analyses, and build interpretable “digital tissue twins” for advancing biological discovery and precision medicine. 

  Abstract

  Spatial omics technologies are reshaping how we study the molecular organization of tissues, offering unprecedented opportunities to map biology in its native spatial context. However, key challenges remain in resolution, scalability, and accessibility. In this talk, I will describe how my lab is developing AI-powered approaches that integrate spatial omics with histopathology to overcome these barriers. I will highlight computational strategies that make spatial omics experiments smarter, faster, and more informative, from enhancing spatial resolution beyond current experimental limits, to extending analyses across large and complex tissues, to integrating diverse molecular measurements within a unified framework. Together, these approaches enable the creation of “digital tissue twins,” computational representations of tissues that capture both molecular and structural organization. Finally, I will discuss our efforts to design AI systems that are transparent and trustworthy, ensuring that these tools can support robust biological discovery and clinical translation. These advances aim to unlock the full potential of spatial omics and enable new insights in the era of precision medicine.

  About the speaker

  Dr. Mingyao Li received her PhD in biostatistics from the University of Michigan in 2005. Initially trained as a statistical geneticist, Dr. Li transitioned her research focus to statistical genomics after joining the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 2006. She has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, including senior-author publications in leading journals such as Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Methods, and Nature Machine Intelligence.

  The central focus of Dr. Li’s current research is the development and application of statistical and machine learning methods to characterize cellular heterogeneity in human disease-relevant tissues using data from single-cell and spatial omics studies, with the goal of translating these insights into clinical practice. More recently, she has expanded her research into computational pathology, which plays a critical role in processing and analyzing spatial omics data. In recognition of her contributions to integrating spatial omics with histopathology, Dr. Li was named to The Pathologist’s 2024 Power List.

  At UPenn, Dr. Li serves as the director of the Statistical Center for Single-Cell and Spatial Genomics and chairs the Graduate Program in Biostatistics. She is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  Join the webinar on Zoom