Introduction
Our group focuses on developing intelligent technologies for the integration and deep mining of biological big data. We build curated, featured databases in areas such as human health and disease, non-coding RNAs, and molecular evolution, supporting national emergency research missions and fundamental scientific studies. Among these efforts, we systematically advance RNA regulatory bioinformatics, establish novel RNA data resource systems, and develop analytical tools and algorithms for RNA research and drug development.
Group leader
MA Lina
Biography
2025.08—Present, Professor, Beijing Institute of Genomics, CAS (China National Center for Bioinformation)
2024.01—2025.08, Distinguished Young Researcher, Beijing Institute of Genomics, CAS (China National Center for Bioinformation)
2018.05—2025.08, Associate Professor, Beijing Institute of Genomics, CAS (China National Center for Bioinformation)
2012.03—2018.05, Assistant Professor, Beijing Institute of Genomics, CAS
2010.07—2012.02, Assistant Professor, Zhoushan Hospital
Research Fields
1. Biological Big Data Integration and Analytics
2. Bioinformatics Databases and Tools
3. RNA Regulatory Informatics
Selected Publications
1. Qi Y, Li Z, Zhou X, Wang M, Zhang Z*, Ma L*. Charting the expression landscape of human long non-coding RNAs across diverse biological contexts with LncExpDB 2.0. Nucleic Acids Res. 2025 Nov 18:gkaf1192.
2. Li Q#, Zhang Y#, Luo S, Zhang Z, Oberg A, Kozono D, Lu H, Sarkaria J, Ma L*, Wang L*. Identify non-mutational p53 functional deficiency in human cancers. Genomics Proteomics Bioinformatics. 2024 Dec 3;22(5):qzae064.
3. Gao X#, Chen K#, Xiong J#, Zou D#, Yang F, Ma Y, Jiang C, Gao X, Wang G, Gu S, Zhang P, Luo S, Huang K, Bao Y, Zhang Z*, Ma L*, Miao W*. The P10K Database: A Data Portal for the Protist 10 000 Genomes Project. Nucleic Acids Res. 2024 Jan 5;52(D1):D747-D755.
4. Li C#, Ma L#, Zou D#, Zhang R#, Bai X, Li L, Wu G, Huang T, Zhao W, Jin E, Bao Y*, Song S*. RCoV19: A One-stop Hub for SARS-CoV-2 Genome Data Integration, Variant Monitoring, and Risk Pre-warning. Genomics Proteomics Bioinformatics. 2023 Oct;21(5):1066-1079.
5. Ma L#,*, Zhao W#, Huang T#, Jin E#, Wu G, Zhao W, and Bao Y*. On the collection and integration of SARS-CoV-2 genome data. Biosafety and Health. 2023, 5(4):204-210.
6. Ma L*, Zhang Z*. The contribution of databases towards understanding the universe of long non-coding RNAs. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2023 Sep;24(9):601-602.
7. Li Z#, Liu L#, Feng C#, Qin Y, Xiao J, Zhang Z*, Ma L*. LncBook 2.0: integrating human long non-coding RNAs with multi-omics annotations. Nucleic Acids Res. 2023 Jan 6;51(D1):D186-D191.
8. Ma L#,*, Zou D#, Liu L#, Shireen H, Abbasi AA, Bateman A, Xiao J, Zhao W, Bao Y, Zhang Z*. Database Commons: A Catalog of Worldwide Biological Databases. Genomics Proteomics Bioinformatics. 2023 Oct;21(5):1054-1058.
9. Liu L#, Li Z#, Liu C#, Zou D, Li Q, Feng C, Jing W, Luo S, Zhang Z*, Ma L*. LncRNAWiki 2.0: a knowledgebase of human long non-coding RNAs with enhanced curation model and database system. Nucleic Acids Res. 2022 Jan 7;50(D1):D190-D195.
10. Liu L#, Zhang Y#, Niu G#, Li Q, Li Z, Zhu T, Feng C, Liu X, Zhang Y, Xu T, Chen R, Teng X, Zhang R, Zou D, Ma L*, Zhang Z*. BrainBase: a curated knowledgebase for brain diseases. Nucleic Acids Res. 2022 Jan 7;50(D1):D1131-D1138.
11. Jiang S#, Du Q#, Feng C#, Ma L*, Zhang Z*. CompoDynamics: a comprehensive database for characterizing sequence composition dynamics. Nucleic Acids Res. 2022 Jan 7;50(D1):D962-D969.
12. Ma L authored in The RNAcentral Consortium. RNAcentral 2021: secondary structure integration, improved sequence search and new member databases. Nucleic Acids Res. 2021 Jan 8;49(D1):D212-D220.
13. Song S#, Ma L#, Zou D#, Tian D#, Li C#, Zhu J#, Chen M, Wang A, Ma Y, Li M, Teng X, Cui Y, Duan G, Zhang M, Jin T, Shi C, Du Z, Zhang Y, Liu C, Li R, Zeng J, Hao L, Jiang S, Chen H, Han D, Xiao J, Zhang Z*, Zhao W*, Xue Y*, Bao Y*. The Global Landscape of SARS-CoV-2 Genomes, Variants, and Haplotypes in 2019nCoVR. Genomics Proteomics Bioinformatics. 2020 Dec;18(6):749-759.
14. Li Z#, Liu L#, Jiang S, Li Q, Feng C, Du Q, Zou D, Xiao J, Zhang Z*, Ma L*. LncExpDB: an expression database of human long non-coding RNAs. Nucleic Acids Res. 2021 Jan 8;49(D1):D962-D968.
15. Li Q#, Li Z#, Feng C, Jiang S, Zhang Z*, Ma L*. Multi-omics annotation of human long non-coding RNAs. Biochem Soc Trans. 2020 Aug 28;48(4):1545-1556.
16. Liu L#, Wang G#, Wang L, Yu C, Li M, Song S, Hao L, Ma L*, Zhang Z*. Computational identification and characterization of glioma candidate biomarkers through multi-omics integrative profiling. Biol Direct. 2020 Jun 15;15(1):10.
17. Zhao W*,#, Song S#, Chen M#, Zou D#, Ma L#, Ma Y, Li R, Hao L, Li C, Tian D, Tang B, Wang Y, Zhu J, Chen H, Zhang Z, Xue Y*, Bao Y*. The 2019 Novel Coronavirus Resource. Yi Chuan. 2020 Feb 20;42(2):212-221.
18. Ma L*,#, Cao J#, Liu L#, Li Z, Shireen H, Pervaiz N, Batool F, Raza R, Zou D, Bao Y, Abbasi A, Zhang Z*. Community curation and expert curation of human long non-coding RNAs. Current Protocols in Bioinformatics 2019.
19. Wang G, Yin H, Li B, Yu C, Wang F, Xu X, Cao J, Bao Y, Wang L, Abbasi A, Bajic V, Ma L*, Zhang Z*. Characterization and identification of long non-coding RNAs based on feature relationship. Bioinformatics. 2019 Sep 1;35(17):2949-2956.
20. Ma L authored in The RNAcentral Consortium. RNAcentral: A hub of information for non-coding RNA sequences. Nucleic Acids Res. 2019 Jan 8;47(D1):D221-D229.
21. Ma L*,#, Cao J#, Liu L#, Du Q, Li Z, Zou D, Bajic VB, Zhang Z*. LncBook: a curated knowledgebase of human long non-coding RNAs. Nucleic Acids Res. 2019 Jan 8;47(D1):D128-D134.
22. Ma L authored in The RNAcentral Consortium. RNAcentral: a comprehensive database of non-coding RNA sequences. Nucleic Acids Res. 2017 Jan 4;45(D1):D128-D134.
23. Ma L#, Li A#, Zou D, Xu X, Xia L, Yu J, Bajic VB*, Zhang Z*. LncRNAWiki: harnessing community knowledge in collaborative curation of human long non-coding RNAs. Nucleic Acids Res. 2015 Jan;43(Database issue):D187-92.
Group Members
PhD student: ZENG Yuhao, WANG Jinbiao
Master’s student: ZHANG Shaosen, GAO Xiaoxuan, LIU Yuxi
Awards and Honors
Outstanding Member of the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2023
Beijing Chaoyang Outstanding Young Talent of the “Phoenix Program”, 2023
Top 10 Advances in Bioinformatics in China 2022: Database Commons
Top 10 Advances in Bioinformatics in China 2020: RCoV19
Top 10 Databases in Bioinformatics in China 2019: LncBook
Contact or Others
Email address: malina@cncb.ac.cn
