EDUCATION

• 2012 - 2014

  Systems Biology Faculty Fellow

  University of California, San Francisco, CA

  2008 - 2012

  Ph.D. in Bioengineering

  University of California, Berkeley, CA

  2006 - 2007

  M.A. in Physics

  University of California, Berkeley, CA

  2001 - 2005

  B.S. in Mathematics and Physics

  Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

  RESEARCH INTERESTS

  My scientific interests are to understand how genetic and molecular programs can yield the complex biological behaviors. As a physicist-converted synthetic biologist and bioengineer, I am passionate about the approach for developing new enabling technologies that allow comprehensive understanding, manipulating, and engineering of sophisticated biological systems. I aim to utilize the mechanistic understanding of natural molecules as a foundation to engineer how interacting molecules assemble to yield cellular or organismal behaviors in both space and time. My lab is interested in studying both the fundamental principles governing these molecular programs, as well as the way such programs can be rationally re-engineered using synthetic biology. We are also interested in manipulating molecular networks to engineer cells with novel behaviors, such as immune cells reprogrammed to recognize and treat cancers. This is an exciting period for innovative breakthroughs in bioengineering: the creation of completely novel tools, technologies, and approaches to interface with, interrogate, and engineer basic molecules, the genome, genetic and molecular networks, and the whole biological systems.