News

2025

Jan: Zukai was selected as a 2025 Washington Research Foundation (WRF) Postdoctoral Fellow! WRF Postdoctoral Fellows are funded for three years at eligible institutions in Washington state to work on ambitious projects addressing major public needs.

Apr: Zukai began his postdoctoral research at University of Washington.
Feb: Zukai presented a talk, “The human trophoblast lineage gives rise to extra-embryonic mesenchyme emphasizing early development as a rich source of evolutionary innovation”, at Keystone Symposia on Stem Cell Models for Embryology.
Jan: Zukai was awarded the Keystone Symposia Future of Science Fund Scholarship.

Dec: Zukai began his postdoctoral research at The Jackson Laboratory.
Nov: Zukai successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation and is officially a Ph.D.!
Aug: Zukai published the research paper “Simultaneous multifunctional transcriptome engineering by CRISPR RNA scaffold” on Nucleic Acids Research.
Jun: Zukai presented a talk, “Simultaneously multi-functional transcriptome engineering by CRISPR RNA scaffold”, at the 5th Annual RNA Therapeutics Conference, at RNA Therapeutics Institute (RTI), UMass Medical School.
Jun: Zukai presented a poster, “The human trophoblast lineage gives rise to extra-embryonic mesenchyme emphasizing early development as a rich source of evolutionary innovation”, at the Diversity in A Dish: Pluripotent Stem Cells in Genetic Analysis and Disease Modeling Workshop.
May: Zukai presented a talk, “The evolution of extra-embryonic mesenchymal cells: Origin, mechanism and function”, at the Young Embryologist Network (YEN) Conference 2023. He was the only PhD student presenter from US.
Apr: Zukai received the Travel Award for 5th Annual RNA Therapeutics Conference.
Apr: Zukai presented a talk, “The evolution of extra-embryonic mesenchymal cells: Origin, mechanism and function”, at the annual review meeting of Board of Scientific Counselors for the Jackson Laboratory For Genomic Medicine. He was the one out of four trainnee presenters and was the only PhD student presenter.

Jun: Zukai presented a poster, “Modeling Extra-Embryonic Mesoderm Lineage Development With Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, at the ISSCR 2022 Annual Meeting.
Jun: Zukai presented a talk, “Simultaneously multi-functional transcriptome engineering by CRISPR RNA scaffold”, at the 27th Annual Meeting of the RNA Society.
May: Zukai co-organized the 2022 annual Scientific Symposium at the Jackson Laboratory.
Mar: Zukai received the Research Presentation Fellowship from RNA Society.
Mar: Zukai published the research paper “PUMILIO proteins promote colorectal cancer growth via suppressing p21” on Nature Communications. Zukai was the co-first author.
Dec: Zukai presented a talk, “Modeling Extra-Embryonic Mesoderm Lineage Development With Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”, at the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR) 54th Annual Meeting.
Dec: Zukai received the Predoctoral Travel Award from The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Sciences.

Oct: Zukai presented a talk, “Modeling Extra-Embryonic Mesoderm Lineage Development With Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells”, at the Scientific Symposium at the Jackson Laboratory.
Jun: Zukai passed his preliminary oral defense and advanced to Ph.D. candidacy at UConn Health.

Dec: Zukai published the research article, “Transplanting cells from old but not young donors causes physical dysfunction in older recipients” on Aging Cell. Zukai was the co-first author.
Sep: Zukai began his doctoral research at The Jackson Laboratory after completing first-year rotation programs.