Dr Weini Huang

Profile

Weini Huang currently works on modelling cancer evolution and species interactions in biological systems. Before being a lecturer in mathematical biology in 2018, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Barts Cancer Institute, QMUL for modelling cancer spatial heterogeneity and the evolution of tumour resistance. She obtained her PhD in 2012 in Evolutionary Theory in the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Biology in north Germany.

Currently, Weini supervises 2 PhD students in the topics of evolutionary theory with application in species coevolution and cancer dynamics and 2 postdoctoral researchers. Weini is interested in understanding how diversity and population patterns are formed and maintained in nature/human cell populations through theoretical approaches as well as their connections with experimental/clinical observations. She collaborates with experimental evolution groups and cancer biologists/clinicians, such as the evolution of trade-offs in a bacteria-ciliate system and drug resistance in ovarian cancer, extrachromosal DNA, mtDNA dynamcis in healthy liver. 

If you are looking for an opportunity of PhD study in math biology, please get in touch!

Undergraduate Teaching

Differential Equations (2017-2018, 2019-2020, 2020-2021)

Vectors and Metrices (2023-2024)

Postgraduate Teaching

Complex Systems (2018-2019)

Time Series in Business(2024-2025)

Research

Research Interests:

See Weini Huang’s research profile pages including details of research interests, publications, and live grants.

Examples of research funding:

Publications

Google Scholar Profile 

1. Morison et al. (2025) Single-cell mutational burden distributions in birth-death processes. PLoS Comput. Biol.  (corresponding author)
2. Long, Morison et al. (2025) Cancer-immune coevolution dictated by antigenic mutation accumulation. eLife (peer-reviewed and not revised version, corresponding author)
3. Hockings et al. (2025). Adaptive Therapy Exploits Fitness Deficits in Chemotherapy-Resistant Ovarian Cancer to Achieve Long-Term Tumor Control  Cancer Research. (contributing author)
4. Moeller et al. (2024). Accumulating waves of random mutations before fixation. PRE. (corresponding author)
5. Hung et al. (2024) Coordinated inheritance of extrachromosomal DNA species in human cancer cells. Nature. (contributing author)
6. Híjar-Islas & Milne et al.(2024) Parasite-mediated predation determines the infection in a complex predator-prey system. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. (joint corresponding author)
7. Moeller et al. (2023). Measures of genetic diversification in somatic tissues at bulk and single cell resolution. eLife. (joint corresponding author)
8. Li et al. (2023) Mutation divergence over space in tumour expansion. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. (joint corresponding author)
9. A. Passman et al. (2023) Hepatocytes undergo punctuated expansion dynamics from a periportal stem cell niche in normal human liver. Journal of Hepatology. (joint corresponding author)
10. Haughey et al. (2023). First passage time analysis of spatial mutation patterns reveals sub-clonal evolutionary dynamics in colorectal cancer. PLoS Comput. Biol. (joint corresponding author)
11. J. Lange et al. (2022). The evolutionary dynamics of extrachromosomal DNA in human cancers. Nature Genetics, 54:1527-1533. (joint corresponding author)
12. Evans et al. (2022) Clonal transitions and phenotypic evolution in Barrett’s Esophagus. Gastroenterology, 162:1197-1209.
13. Lakatos et al. (2021) LiquidCNA: tracking subclonal evolution from longitudinal liquid biopsies using somatic copy number alterations. iScience, 24:102889.
14. Werner et al. (2020) Measuring single cell divisions in human cancers from multi-region sequencing data. Nat. Comm., 11, 1035.
15. Retel, Kowallik, Huang et al. (2019) The feedback between selection and demography shapes genomic diversity during coevolution. Science Advances 5 (10), eaax0530.
16. Chkhaidze et al. (2019) Spatially constrained tumour growth affects the patterns of clonal selection and neutral drift in cancer genomic data. Plos Computational Biology, 5(7):e1007243.
17. Park, Pichugin, Huang et al. (2019) Population size changes and extinction risk of populations driven by mutant interactors. Physical Review E 99 (2), 022305
18. Boddy, Huang, Aktipis. (2018) Life History Trade-Offs in Tumors. Current pathobiology reports 6 (4), 201-207. (Invited Review)
19. Baker A-M, Huang et al. (2017). Robust RNA-based in situ mutation detection delineates colorectal cancer subclonal evolution. Nat. Comm., 8 (1), 1998.
20. Huang et al. (2017) Dynamical trade-offs arise from antagonistic coevolution and decrease intraspecific diversity. Nat. Comm 8 (1), 2059. (corresponding author)
21. Amado, Fernández, Huang et al. (2016) Competing metabolic strategies in a multilevel selection model. Royal Society Open Science, 3:160544.
22. Huang et al. (2016). A resource-based game theoretical approach for the paradox of the plankton. PeerJ, 4:e2329. (joint corresponding author)
23. Huang, Hauert, Traulsen. (2015) Stochastic game dynamics under demographic fluctuations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112:9064-9069.
24. Amado, Huang et al. (2015). Learning process in public goods games. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 430:21-31.
25. Huang, Werner, Traulsen. (2012) The impact of random frequency-dependent mutations on the average fitness. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 12:160.
26. Huang et al. (2012) Emergence of stable polymorphisms driven by evolutionary games between mutants. Nature Communications, 3:919.
27. Huang, Traulsen. (2010). Fixation probabilities of random mutants under frequency dependent selection. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 263(2):262∼ 268
28. Zhang, Liu, Huang et al (2008). Occurrence of Nematode parasites in raptors in Beijing, China. Journal of Raptor Research, 42(3):204∼209.

Preprints:

• Scanu et al. (2024) Population dynamics of multiple ecDNA types. arXiv. (joint corresponding author)
• Scanu et al. (2024) The maintanance of multiple ecDNA types in single cancer cells. bioRxiv. (corresponding author)
• Híjar-Islas et al. (2023) Complex life cycles and parasite-mediated trophic cascades drive species coexistence and the maintenance of genetic diversity. BioRxiv (joint corresponding author)
• Ahmed et al. (2023) Clonal fitness decline in somatic differentiation hierarchies. BioRxiv (joint corresponding author)

Supervision

Current supervision:

Jordan Cobley ( 2025.05-)

Jordan is a first-year PhD student in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. Prior to this, Jordan spent four years at Durham University, where he attained a master's degree in MPhys Theoretical Physics. Currently, Jordan is looking at modelling mutation accumulation within ecDNA, an erroneous form of DNA detected in over 30% of tumour samples, and how it differs from mutation accumulation in standard chromosomal DNA.

Longxiao Wang (2025.01-) Longxiao is a first-year PhD stuendent in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. Before joining QMUL, Longxiao obtained a bachelor degree in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics from Shandong University Of Science And Technology, and a master degreen in Financial Mathematics and Statistics, from City University Of Hong Kong. Longxiao works on the mutation accumulations in chromosomal DNA.

Poulami Ganguly (2023. 03 - Postdoctoral Researcher)

Funded by Cancer Grant Challenges (eDyNAmic), Poulami works on stochastic models of ecDNA and RNA copy number dynamics. Prior to joining Queen Mary, Poulami completed a PhD in applied mathematics in the area of inverse problems and convex optimization.

Alan Scaramangas (2023. 02 - Postdoctoral Researcher)

Funded by Cancer Grant Challenges (eDyNAmic), Alan works on modeling ecDNA dynamics in constant population. Before joining qmul, Alan did his PhD in applying evolutionary game theory for modeling aposematic prey populations.

Past members:

Christo Morison (2021.09 - 2025.04) studied in mathematics and physics at McGill University in Canada (UG) and in mathematics at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands (MS), and was a PhD student in our group modelling the mutation accumulation in birth-death processes, cancer-immune coevolution and the progenitor cell dynamics in prostate cancer. Christo was fund by EU ITN programme and succesfully passed his viva in April 2025.

Elisa Scanu (2020.09 - 2025.01) studied in applied Mathematics in “La Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy (BSc and MSc) and was a PhD student in our group modeling multiple ecDNA types (species and phenotypes). Elisa succesfully passed her viva on Jan 2025 and is now a postdoctoral researcher in Barts Cancer Institute, QMUL.

Dr. Iftikhar Ahmed (2020.01- 2024.08) holds an MPhil degree in Mathematics from Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, Pakistan and was a PhD student in our group working on the deterministic model and stochastic simulation of mutation accumulation in hierarchically organized tissue structures. After his PhD, Iftikhar returned to Pakistan as an associate professor in applied math at the university of Swat.

Dr. Nathaniel Mon Pere (2020.12 - 2021. 05)

Nathaniel is a theoretical physicists worked in our group as a Postdoctoral researcher on the topic of somatic evolution and mutation burden dynamics. Now he is a postdoctoral researcher in Barts Cancer Institute, QMUL.

Dr. Magnus Haughey (2018.11 -2022.09) studied in physics and was a PhD student in our group modeling spatial dynamics in cancer evolution and is now a postdoctoral researcher in Barts Cancer Institute, QMUL.

Dr. Marius Moeller (2018.05 - 2022.12) studied applied mathematics and was a PhD student in our group working on the topic of random mutation accumulation in healthy tissue. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in a bioinformatic group at the University of Lübeck.