About

Yuedong Wang is a professor in the Department of Statistics and Applied Probability at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He earned a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from the University of Science and Technology of China, a master's degree in Operations Research from the Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Science, and a doctoral degree in Statistics from the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining UCSB, he worked in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), and the International Statistical Institute (ISI), a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), and a member of the International Biometric Society (IBS) and the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA). His research centers on developing statistical methodologies and exploring their diverse applications. His current interests include machine learning, nonparametric and semiparametric methods, smoothing splines, mixed-effects models, state-space models, survival analysis, longitudinal data, functional data analysis, and biostatistics. He is open to new opportunities for collaborative research.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Urology
• Demography
• Virology

Selected publications

• Synergistic Chemoimmunotherapy of Hepatocellular Carcinoma via ROS-Responsive Carrier-Free Prodrug Nanoparticles

  Nano Letters · 2026-05-20

  article

  Carrier-free nanomedicines, with their high drug-loading capacity and low carrier-associated toxicity, offer a promising strategy for synergistic cancer therapy. Here, we developed a reactive oxygen species (ROS)-responsive, carrier-free nanoparticle (PRO/OCA NP) self-assembled from a resveratrol prodrug (PRO) and the immune adjuvant obeticholic acid (OCA). The oxalate ester linkage enabled selective cleavage in the ROS-enriched tumor microenvironment, ensuring precise co-release of Res and OCA. This dual delivery suppressed hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) proliferation, induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, and inhibited PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling. Meanwhile, PRO/OCA NPs trigger immunogenic cell death in tumor cells, activating NK and NKT cells and enhancing their cytotoxic functions, thereby amplifying the innate immune responses. In an orthotopic HCC mouse model, PRO/OCA markedly inhibited both primary and metastatic tumors while exhibiting favorable biocompatibility. Compared with monotherapy or simple drug combinations, this platform achieves a "1 + 1 > 2" chemo-immunotherapeutic synergy, offering a strategy with translational potential for comprehensive HCC treatment.

  PublisherDOI

• A case of mixed lung cancer comprising small-cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma

  Asian Journal of Surgery · 2025-12-03

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Exploring the role of EBV ZEBRA antibody levels in papillary thyroid cancer risk and drug resistance

  Discover Oncology · 2025-04-11 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), the most prevalent thyroid malignancy worldwide, exhibits an increasing incidence globally despite its generally favorable prognosis. Although its etiology remains partially elucidated, recent investigations have implicated specific pathogens-notably Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-in PTC pathogenesis. To rigorously evaluate the causal relationship between EBV ZEBRA antibody levels and PTC risk, we conducted a two-sample bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis leveraging large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) data. For instrumental variable selection, we identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) strongly associated with EBV ZEBRA antibody levels (exposure traits) using a discovery GWAS of 8191 White British individuals. The outcome analysis was performed against a Finnish cohort comprising 1472 PTC cases and 314,193 controls. Our primary analysis via inverse variance-weighting (IVW) revealed a significant positive association between genetically predicted higher EBV ZEBRA antibody levels and PTC risk (p = 0.0003; odds ratio [OR] = 1.19). Notably, the intercept term analysis showed no evidence of systematic level effect bias (p = 0.46). Sensitivity analyses using the weighted median method corroborated the main findings (p = 0.01; OR = 1.21), suggesting robustness against potential confounding factors. However, inherent limitations such as residual pleiotropy, genetic linkage disequilibrium, and population-specific allele frequencies necessitate cautious interpretation. These results collectively indicate that EBV ZEBRA antibody elevation may represent a biological marker for PTC susceptibility, offering novel mechanistic insights and potential targets for early detection and preventive strategies. Further translational studies are warranted to delineate the precise molecular pathways underlying this association.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Case Report: Coexistence of an esophageal schwannoma disguised as a leiomyoma with a gastrointestinal stromal tumor of the gastric fundus

  Frontiers in Oncology · 2025-04-16

  articleOpen access1st author

  To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of coexisting esophageal schwannoma and gastric fundus gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). This case report describes the diagnostic and treatment process of a patient with esophageal schwannoma who also had a concurrent gastric fundus GIST and was presented to Hebei General Hospital (Hebei, China) in October 2024. The association between the pathogenesis of the two types of submucosal gastrointestinal tumors is unclear, with limited existing evidence in the literature. The esophageal schwannoma was misdiagnosed as a leiomyoma preoperatively, which prompted us to seek new diagnostic modalities to differentiate gastrointestinal submucosal lesions (leiomyomas, GISTs, and schwannomas). Surgical resection is considered the optimal treatment for esophageal schwannoma. The patient underwent a right single-port thoracoscopic esophageal tumor resection and recovered well, subsequently being discharged smoothly from the hospital.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• APDL: an adaptive step size method for white-box adversarial attacks

  Complex & Intelligent Systems · 2025-01-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Recent research has shown that deep learning models are vulnerable to adversarial attacks, including gradient attacks, which can lead to incorrect outputs. The existing gradient attack methods typically rely on repetitive multistep strategies to improve their attack success rates, resulting in longer training times and severe overfitting. To address these issues, we propose an adaptive perturbation-based gradient attack method with dual-loss optimization (APDL). This method adaptively adjusts the single-step perturbation magnitude based on an exponential distance function, thereby accelerating the convergence process. APDL achieves convergence in fewer than 10 iterations, outperforming the traditional nonadaptive methods and achieving a high attack success rate with fewer iterations. Furthermore, to increase the transferability of gradient attacks such as APDL across different models and reduce the effects of overfitting on the training model, we introduce a triple-differential logit fusion (TDLF) method grounded in knowledge distillation principles. This approach mitigates the edge effects associated with gradient attacks by adjusting the hardness and softness of labels. Experiments conducted on ImageNet-compatible datasets demonstrate that APDL is significantly faster than the commonly used nonadaptive methods, whereas the TDLF method exhibits strong transferability.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Experimental investigation on anti-slip performance of bolted connection of weather-resistant steel

  Innovative Infrastructure Solutions · 2025-03-08

  article1st author
  PublisherDOI

• Preoperative plasma fibrinogen combined with the platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (F-PLR) serves as a prognostic indicator in patients with non-small cell lung cancer

  Frontiers in Oncology · 2025-10-31

  articleOpen access

  Background: The aim of this study was to explore the prognostic significance of the combined plasma fibrinogen level and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (F-PLR) score in patients who had undergone radical surgery for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: In this study, we retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 214 patients who underwent radical resection for lung cancer. The optimal cut-off values for fibrinogen and the platelet - lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were determined by applying the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the Youden index. Based on these cut-off values, the patients were categorized into three groups: patients with elevated fibrinogen and PLR were assigned a score of 2; those with either elevated fibrinogen or PLR were assigned a score of 1; and those with neither elevation were assigned a score of 0. The Kaplan-Meier method was utilized to plot the survival curves, and differences among the curves were compared using the log - rank test. Univariate and multivariate analyses were carried out using the Cox proportional hazards model. Results: In this study, the optimal cutoff values were 3.90 for fibrinogen and 213.2 for the PLR. Cox's multifactorial analysis revealed that the implementation of adjuvant therapy after surgery(P<0.001), pathological stage(PStage=IIIA/I=0.041), and F-PLR(PF-PLR=1/0 = 0.006、PF-PLR=2/0 = 0.004)were independent prognostic factors influencing patient survival. Additionally, F-PLR was significantly correlated with the overall survival of NSCLC patients after surgery. Conclusions: The F-PLR score exhibits a significant association with the prognosis of NSCLC patients and can serve as a biomarker for predicting the prognosis of patients following NSCLC surgery.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Azygos vein aneurysm (AVA): A case report

  Asian Journal of Surgery · 2025-02-04

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Pretreatment level of circulating tumor cells is associated with lymph node metastasis in papillary thyroid carcinoma patients with ≤ 55 years old

  World Journal of Surgical Oncology · 2025-01-29 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship of pretreatment of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and cervical lymph node metastasis (LNM) (central LNM (CLNM) and lateral LNM (LLNM)) in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) patients with ≤ 55 years old. METHODS: Clinicopathological data (CTCs level, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, thyroid function, multifocal, tumor size, invaded capsule, clinical stage, and LNM) of 588 PTC patients with ≤ 55 years old were retrospectively collected. The relationship of CLNM, LLNM and the clinical features of patients was analyzed. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate the relationship between the CTCs and CLNM, LLNM. RESULTS: There were 273(46.4%) and 89(15.1%) patients with CLNM and LLNM, respectively. Patients with CLNM had higher proportions of multifocality, tumor size > 1 cm, invaded capsule, and positive CTCs level than those without (all p < 0.05). Patients with LLNM had higher proportions of multifocality, tumor size > 1 cm, and invaded capsule than those without (all p < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that multifocality (odds ratio (OR): 1.821, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.230-2.698, p = 0.003), tumor size > 1 cm (OR: 3.444, 95% CI: 2.296-5.167, p < 0.001), invaded capsule (OR: 1.699, 95% CI: 1.167-2.473, p = 0.006), and positive CTCs level (OR: 1.469, 95% CI: 1.019-2.118, p = 0.040) were independently associated with CLNM; and multifocality (OR: 2.373, 95% CI: 1.389-4.052, p = 0.002), tumor size > 1 cm (OR: 5.344, 95% CI: 3.037-9.402, p < 0.001), and invaded capsule (OR: 2.591, 95% CI: 1.436-4.674, p = 0.002) were independently associated with LLNM. CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative CTCs positive was associated with CLNM in PTC patients with ≤ 55 years old, but not LLNM.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• WCN25-4092 SODIUM GRADIENT AND ALL-CAUSE MORTALITY IN INCIDENT MAINTENANCE HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS: RESULTS FROM THE MONitoring Dialysis Outcomes (MONDO) INITIATIVE

  Kidney International Reports · 2025-01-27

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Early detection, containment, and management of COVID-19 in dialysis facilities using multi-modal data sources

  NIH · $2.0M · 2020–2025

• NIH Grant R01GM058533

  NIH · $787k · 2006

• Collaborative Research: Smoothing Spline Semiparametric Density Models

  NSF · $228k · 2015–2019

• Adaptive Regression via Basis Selection from Multiple Libraries

  NSF · $150k · 2007–2011

Frequent coauthors

• Peter Kotanko

  Renal Research Institute

  101 shared

• Len A. Usvyat

  Fresenius Medical Care (United States)

  98 shared

• Jeroen P. Kooman

  Maastricht University

  40 shared

• Frank M. van der Sande

  Maastricht University

  34 shared

• Franklin W. Maddux

  Fresenius Medical Care North America (United States)

  31 shared

• Jochen G. Raimann

  Renal Research Institute

  27 shared

• Bernard Canaud

  27 shared

• Xiaoqi Xu

  Zhejiang Chinese Medical University

  21 shared

Labs

• Center for Financial Mathematics and Actuarial ResearchPI