William W. Lau, Ph.D.

Dr. William Lau joined the DCTD in 2024 as a biomedical informatics scientist, providing data management support across the division. He plays a key role in NCI-supported precision medicine clinical trials, collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to standardize and streamline the flow of information from clinical sites to assay laboratories and beyond. His efforts ensure optimal resource utilization and facilitate downstream data analyses for biomarker and therapeutic discovery.

Before joining DCTD, Dr. Lau conducted research in systems immunology in Dr. John Tsang’s laboratory at NIAID, leveraging bioinformatics and multi-omics approaches to deeply profile and investigate the human immune system. He also led multiple projects developing bioinformatics infrastructure and tools for the Tsang Lab and the Center for Human Immunology.

Selected Publications

• Sparks, R.*, Rachmaninoff, N.*, Lau, W.W.*, Hirsch, D.C.*, Bansal, N.*, et al. (2024). A unified metric of human immune health. Nature Med 30(9):2461-2472.
• Sparks, R.*, Lau, W.W.*, Liu, C.* et al. (2023). Influenza vaccination reveals sex dimorphic imprints of prior mild COVID-19. Nature 614(7949):752-761.
• Liu, C.*, Martins, A.J.*, Lau, W.W.*, Rachmaninoff, N.*, et al. (2021). Time-resolved systems immunology reveals a late juncture linked to fatal COVID-19. Cell 184(7):1836-1857.e22.

* co-first authors

Education

• Ph.D., Bioinformatics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
• M.S.E., Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
• B.S., Biomedical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Wisconsin – Madison, WI