I am currrently a Principal at Plaisance Capital Management LLC., and VP of Research & Development at AccuraDX. At Plaisance Capital, I have been engaged in creating new biotech companies, including Sedec Therapeutics and ProteoValent Therapeutics.
I was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Professor Xiaowei Zhuang's group at Harvard University. I have been developing and applying new technologies including multi-color STORM imaging and MERFISH to image RNA, RNA modifications and their binding proteins to study the dynamics and function of RNA modifications in eukaryotes, especially in the phase-separation process to form subcellular membraneless organells.
I was then trained as a Chemical Biologist in Professor Chuan He's group at the University of Chicago during my PhD studies from 2007 to 2012. I studied the biochemical functions of a group of DNA repair protein AlkB-homologs, and surprisingly discovered that several of these proteins dynamically regulate RNA modifications in tRNA and mRNA.
After graduation, I worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Chuan's lab to explore the function of N6-methyladenine (m6A or 6mA) in eukaryotes from 2013 to 2014. I developed several sequencing methods for genome-wide single-base resolution profiling of 6mA in genomic DNA, and obtained the 6mA distribution map in green algea Chlamydomonas. I found some unique patterns of 6mA in Chlamydomonas, including a periodic distribution, specific localization on the linker DNA between two adjacent nucleosomes at TSS, and marking of gene activation.
Outside lab, I am an active rock climber and mountaineer.