CV

Education

• Ph.D in Biomedical Science, Uconn Health, 2023 winter (expected)
• M.S. in Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2018
• B.S. in Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, 2015

Research Experience

• Modeling extra-embryonic mesenchymal cell (ExMC) lineages in the early embryonic development by human induced pluripotent stem cell
  • Supervisor: Dr. Paul Robson, Aug 2023 - Present
  • Generated a novel cell model for the ExMC lineage.
  • Revealed the key regulators for the ExMC commitment and differentiation.
  • Demonstrated the evolution and biological function of ExMC.
• Developing tools for multiplexed transcriptome engineering based on CRISPR RNA scaffold
  • Supervisor: Dr. Albert Cheng & Dr. Paul Robson, Aug 2019 - Jun 2023
  • Designed CREST architecture for multifunctional RNA editing and validated its capability on simultaneously induction of alternative splicing, A-to-G and C-to-U base editing.
  • Reconstituted split ADAR2 enzyme activity on desired transcript with CREST at high efficiency.
• Dissecting side effect of transplanting cells from aged donor by single cell analysis
  • Supervisor: Dr. Paul Robson & Dr. Ming Xu, Mar 2019 – Jan 2020
  • Identified the senescent cell population in the human adipose cells from aged donor.
  • Described the side effects of transplanting senescent cells from aged donor to young mice.
  • Revealed the key singling pathways involved in the senescent cell.
• Investigating the function of RNA binding protein and miRNAs in tumorigenesis
  • Supervisor: Dr. Haifan Lin, Oct 2016 – Jun 2018
  • Revealed that PUMILIOs promote colorectal cancer growth and identified p21 transcript as the key target of PUMILIOs.
  • Demonstrated that miR221/2 promote TNBC progression by activating WNT signaling pathway.

Skills

• Molecular and cellular biology: bacterial culture, cloning, western blotting, RT-qPCR, immunostaining, confocal microscopy, phenix, flow cytometry, ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, mammalian cell culture, hiPSC culture for 2D differentiation and 3D organoids generation etc.
• Bioinformatics: R and Python, scRNA-seq (cell clustering and annotation, marker genes identification, cell-cell communications, integration of multiple datasets etc), bulk RNA-seq (gene expression, base editing, alternative splicing etc), ChIP-seq. * Sub-skill 2.1
• Gene manipulation: transfection, nucleofection, siRNA, shRNA, CRISPR/Cas9 knock-out and knock-in, CRISPR/Cas13 RNA editing.

Mentoring Experience

• Carla D’Amato(Purdue University), Summer Student at the Jackson Laboratory, 2023
• Abraham López(Case Western Reserve University), Summer Student at the Jackson Laboratory, 2021
• iGEM team at Shanghaitech University China, 2016