His research interest includes finding genetic factors predisposing for systemic lupus erythematosus. Through genome-wide association studies on a local population, together with collaborations with scientists in the mainland, UK and the US, he has played a major role in identifying several dozen susceptibility genes for this prototype autoimmune disease.

Another research area for Dr. Yang is making molecular diagnosis for Mendelian diseases. He is working on improving sequencing platforms and analysis methodologies for detection of disease causal mutations using next generation sequencing.

Dr. Yang leads a laboratory with multidisciplinary expertise including genetics, genomics and bioinformatics. He is interested in analyzing various omics data to gain biological insight, thus bridging big data and biomedical applications.