Cell scientist to watch – Lei Stanley Qi

Abstract

Originally from China, Lei (Stanley) Qi obtained his first degree in physics and mathematics at the Tsinghua University. He then moved to University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with an MA in physics and worked in the laboratory of Steven Chu, Noble Laureate in Physics (1997), before switching fields to pursue a PhD in bioengineering in the laboratories of Adam Arkin and Jennifer Doudna. Stanley's work earned him the National Institutes of Health Director's Early Independence Award, which allowed him to start his own laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, as a Systems Biology Fellow without a postdoctoral training period. In 2014, he moved to Stanford, where he is now Assistant Professor at the Department of Bioengineering and of Chemical and Systems Biology, and is affiliated with Stanford Chemistry, Engineering and Medicine for Human Health (ChEM-H). He invented the use of the CRISPR–dCas9 system for transcriptional modulation and genome imaging. His current research is focused on developing new tools and technologies for genome editing and transcriptional modulation, manipulating molecular networks to understand fundamental principles of biology and engineering cells to exhibit desired behaviors, such as teaching immune cells to recognise and eliminate cancers.