Welcome to Stanley Qi lab @ Stanford Bioengineering

Our research laboratory focuses on the bioengineering of genetics and cells. We are interested in developing genetic engineering technologies and exploring discovery-based synthetic biology for diverse applications. We explore how the human genome as sophisticated gene and regulatory programs encode functions, and how to rationally design genetic circuits for new therapeutics. For technology development, we repurposed the bacteria Clustered Regularly InterSpaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) system and developed the CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) technology as gene switches to activate or repress genes in the genome. We continue to synthesize and characterize macromolecules and study their use as new tools. For discovery-based synthetic biology, we aim to adopt synthetic biology for biological or biomedical discoveries. We are eager to understanding the design principles of the genome and cells, such that they can autonomously and accurately perform designed functions for killing cancers and regenerating tissues. We are seeking methods to better engineer human immune cells so they can precisely sense the environment signals. By engineering at multiple scales from molecular to cellular to organismal levels, we hope to make engineering as a fundamental discovery approach.